
V 








JpP 




Book >Hl , 

BEQUEST OF 
ALBERT ADSIT CLEMONS 
(Not available for exchange) 



1 




Thomas Carlyle, 



SARTOR RESARTUS. 



THE LIFE AND OPINIONS OF 
HERR TEUFELSDROCKH. 



BY 

Thomas Carlyle. 



NEW YORK : 46 East 14TH Street. 

THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO 

BOSTON : ioo Purchase Street. 



.Ai 



Bequest 

Albert Adsit Cleraons 

Aug. 24, 1938 

(Not available for exchange) 



1 1 i 



CONTENTS. 



BOOK I. 

CHAP. 

I. Preliminary 

II. Editorial Difficulties 

III. Reminiscences . 

IV. Characteristics 
V. The World in Clothes 

VI. Aprons 

VI I . Miscellaneous-historical 
VIII The World out of Clothes 

IX. Adamitism .... 

X. Pure Reason 

XI. Prospective 



PAGE 

5 
ii 

16 

3i 

33 
46 

49 
54 
61 

67 
74 



BOOK II. 



I. Genesis .... 

II. Idyllic .... 

III. Pedagogy .... 

IV. Getting under Way 

V. Romance .... 

VI. Sorrows of Teufelsdrockh 

VII. The Everlasting No 

VIII. Centre of Indifference . 

IX. The Everlasting Yea 

X, Pause 

3 



85 
94 

105 

125 

140 

1,55 

167 
177 
191 
205 



CONTENTS. 



BOOK III. 

CHAP. 

I. Incident in Modern History 

II. Church-Clothes 

III. Symbols 

IV. Helotage . 
V. The Phcenix 

VI. Old Clothes 

VII. Organic Filaments . 

VIII. Natural Supernaturalism 

IX. Circumspective 

X. The Dandiacal Body 

XI. Tailors 

XII. Farewell . 



PAGE 
215 

221 

225 
234 
239 
247 
252 
263 
276 
28l 

297 
30I 



Appendix: Testimonies of Authors 

Summary 

Index ...... 



309 
319 
329 



SARTOR RESARTUS. 



BOOK FIRST. 



CHAPTER I. 

PRELIMINARY. 

Considering our present advanced state of cul- 
ture, and how the Torch of Science has now been 
brandished and borne about, with more or less effect, 
for five thousand years and upwards ; how, in these 
times especially, not only the Torch still burns, and 
perhaps more fiercely than ever, but innumerable 
Rushlights, and Sulphur-matches, kindled thereat, 
are also glancing in every direction, so that not the 
smallest -cranny or doghole in Nature or Art can re- 
main unilluminated, — it might strike the reflective 
mind with some surprise that hitherto little or noth- 
ing of a fundamental character, whether in the way 
of Philosophy or History, has been written on the 
subject of Clothes. 

Our Theory of Gravitation is as good as perfect : 
Lagrange, it is well known, has proved that the 
Planetary System, on this scheme, will endure for- 

5 



6 SARTOR RESARTUS. book i. 

ever ; Laplace, still more cunningly, even guesses 
that it could not have been made on any other 
scheme. Whereby, at least, our nautical Logbooks 
can be better kept ; and water-transport of all kinds 
has grown more commodious. Of Geology and 
Geognosy we know enough : what with the labors 
of our Werners and Huttons, what with the ardent 
genius of their disciples, it has come about that now, 
to many a Royal Society, the Creation of a World is 
little more mysterious than the cooking of a dump- 
ling ; concerning which last, indeed, there have been 
minds to whom the question, How the apples were 
got in, presented difficulties. Why mention our dis- 
quisitions on the Social Contract, on the Standard of 
Taste, on the Migrations of the Herring ? Then, 
have we not a Doctrine of Rent, a Theory of Value ; 
Philosophies of Language, of History, of Pottery, of 
Apparitions, of Intoxicating Liquors ? Man's whole 
life and environment have been laid open and eluci- 
dated ; scarcely a fragment or fibre of his Soul, Body, 
and Possessions, but has been probed, dissected, dis- 
tilled, desiccated, and scientifically decomposed : our 
spiritual Faculties, of which it appears there are not 
a few, have their Stewarts, Cousins, Royer Collards : 
every cellular, vascular, muscular Tissue glories in 
its Lawrences, Majendies, Bichats. 

How, then, comes it, may the reflective mind 
repeat, that the grand Tissue of all Tissues, the only 
real Tissue, should have been quite overlooked by 
Science, — the vestural Tissue, namely, of woollen 
or other cloth ; which Man's Soul wears as its out- 
most wrappage and overall ; wherein his whole other 



chap I. PRELIMINARY. 7 

Tissues are included and screened, his whole Facul- 
ties work, his whole Self lives, moves, and has its 
being ? For if, now and then, some straggling 
broken-winged thinker has cast an owl's-glance into 
this obscure region, the most have soared over it 
altogether heedless ; regarding Clothes as a property, 
not an accident, as quite natural and spontaneous, 
like the leaves of trees, like the plumage of birds. 
In all speculations they have tacitly figured man 
as a Clothed Animal; whereas he is by nature a 
Naked Animal ; and only in certain circumstances, 
by purpose and device, masks himself in Clothes. 
Shakespeare says, we are creatures that look before 
and after : the more surprising that we do not look 
round a little, and see what is passing under our 
o^ery eyes. 

But here, as in so many other cases, Germany, 
learned, indefatigable, deep-thinking Germany comes 
to our aid. It is, after all, a blessing that, in these 
revolutionary times, there should be one country where 
abstract Thought can still take shelter ; that while 
the din and frenzy of Catholic Emancipations, and 
Rotten Boroughs, and Revolts of Paris, deafen every 
French and every English ear, the German can stand 
peaceful on his scientific watch-tower ; and, to the 
raging, struggling multitude here and elsewhere, 
solemnly, from hour to hour, with preparatory blast 
of cowhorn, emit his H'dret ihr Herren und las set's 
Ench sagen ; in other words, tell the Universe, which 
so often forgets that fact, what o'clock it really is. 
Not unfrequently the Germans have been blamed for 
an unprofitable diligence ; as if they struck into 



8 SARTOR RESARTUS. book i. 

devious courses, where nothing was to be had but 
the toil of a rough journey ; as if, forsaking the gold- 
mines of finance and that political slaughter of fat 
oxen whereby a man himself grows fat, they were 
apt to run goose-hunting into regions of bilberries 
and crowberries, and be swallowed up at last in 
remote peat-bogs. Of that unwise science, which, as 
our Humorist expresses it, — 

" By geometric scale 
Doth take the size of pots of ale ; " 

still more, of that altogether misdirected industry, 
which is seen vigorously thrashing mere straw, there 
can nothing defensive be said. In so far as the 
Germans are chargeable with such, let them take 
the consequence. Nevertheless be it remarked, that 
even a Russian steppe has tumuli and gold orna- 
ments ; also many a scene that looks desert and rock- 
bound from the distance, will unfold itself, when 
visited, into rare valleys. Nay, in any case, would 
Criticism erect not only finger-posts and turnpikes, 
but spiked gates and impassable barriers, for the 
mind of man ? It is written, " Many shall run to and 
fro, and knowledge shall be increased.'" Surely the 
plain rule is, Let each considerate person have his 
way, and see what it will lead to. For not this man 
and that man, but all men make up mankind, and 
their united tasks the task of mankind. How often 
have we seen some such adventurous, and perhaps 
much-censured wanderer light on some out-lying, 
neglected, yet vitally momentous province ; the hid- 
den treasures of which he first discovered, and kept 



chap J. PRELIMINARY. 9 

proclaiming till the general eye and effort were 
directed thither, and the conquest was completed ; — 
thereby, in these his seemingly so aimless rambles, 
planting new standards, founding new habitable col- 
onies, in the immeasurable circumambient realm of 
Nothingness and Nieht ! Wise man was he who 
counselled that Speculation should have free course, 
and look fearlessly towards all the thirty-two points 
of the compass, whithersoever and howsoever it 
listed. 

Perhaps it is proof of the stunted condition in 
which pure Science, especially pure moral Science, 
languishes among us English ; and how our mercan- 
tile greatness, and invaluable Constitution, impress- 
ing a political or other immediately practical tendency 
on all English culture and endeavor, cramps the free 
flight of Thought, — that this, not Philosophy of 
Clothes, but recognition even that we have no such 
Philosophy, stands here for the first time published 
in our language. What English intellect could have 
chosen such a topic, or by chance stumbled on it ? 
But for that same unshackled, and even sequestered 
condition of the German Learned, which permits and 
induces them to fish in all manner of waters, with 
all manner of nets, it seems probable enough, this 
abstruse Inquiry might, in spite of the results it leads 
to, have continued dormant for indefinite periods. 
The Editor of these sheets, though otherwise boast- 
ing himself a man of confirmed speculative habits, 
and perhaps discursive enough, is free to confess, 
that never, till these last months, did the above very 



io SARTOR RESARTUS. book i. 

plain considerations, on our total want of a Philoso- 
phy of Clothes, occur to him ; and then, by quite 
foreign suggestion. By the arrival, namely, of a new 
Book from Professor Teufelsdrockh of Weissnichtwo ; 
treating expressly of this subject, and in a style 
which, whether understood or not, could not even by 
the blindest be overlooked. In the present Editor's 
way of thought, this remarkable Treatise, with its 
Doctrines, whether as judicially acceded to, or judi- 
cially denied, has not remained without effect. 

" Die Kleider, ihr Werden und Wirken (Clothes, 
their Origin and Influence) : von Diog. Teufels- 
drockh, J. U. D. etc. Stills chweigen und Cognie. 
Weissjiichtwo , 1 83 1 . 

" Here, ri says the Weissnichtwo 1 sche Anzeiger, 
"comes a Volume of that extensive, close-printed, 
close-meditated sort, which, be it spoken with pride, 
is seen only in Germany, perhaps only in Weiss- 
nichtwo. Issuing from the hitherto irreproachable 
Firm of Stillschweigen and Company, with every exter- 
nal furtherance, it is of such internal quality as to set 
Neglect at defiance." . . . " A work," concludes the 
well-nigh enthusiastic Reviewer, " interesting alike 
to the antiquary, the historian, and the philosophic 
thinker ; a masterpiece of boldness, lynx-eyed acute- 
ness, and rugged independent Germanism and 
Philanthropy {derber Kemdeutschheit und Menschen- 
liebe) ; which will not, assuredly, pass current with- 
out opposition in high places; but must and will 
exalt the almost new name of Teufelsdrockh to the 
first ranks of Philosophy, in our German Temple of 
Honor." 



chap. n. EDITORIAL DIFFICULTIES. n 

Mindful of old friendship, the distinguished Pro- 
fessor, in this the first blaze of his fame, which 
however does not dazzle him, sends hither a Presen- 
tation-copy of his Book ; with compliments and 
encomiums which modesty forbids the present Editor 
to rehearse ; yet without indicated wish or hope of 
any kind, except what may be implied in the con- 
cluding phrase : Mochte es (this remarkable Treatise) 
auch im Brittisohen Boden gedeihen ! 



CHAPTER II. 

EDITORIAL DIFFICULTIES. 

If for a speculative man, "whose seedfield, 11 in 
the sublime words of the Poet, "is Time," no con- 
quest is important but that of new ideas, then might 
the arrival of Professor Teufelsdrockh's Book be 
marked with chalk in the Editors calendar. It is 
indeed an " extensive Volume, 11 of boundless, almost 
formless contents, a very Sea of Thought ; neither 
calm nor clear, if you will ; yet wherein the toughest 
pearl-diver may dive to his utmost depth, and return 
not only with sea-wreck but with true orients. 

Directly on the first perusal, almost on the first 
deliberate inspection, it became apparent that here a 
quite new Branch of Philosophy, leading to as yet 
undescried ulterior results, was disclosed ; farther, 
what seemed scarcely less interesting, a quite new 
human Individuality, an almost unexampled personal 
character, that, namely, of Professor Teufelsdrockb 



12 SARTOR RESARTUS. book i. 

the Discloser. Of both which novelties, as far as 
might be possible, we resolved to master the sig- 
nificance. But as man is emphatically a proselytizing 
creature, no sooner was such mastery even fairly 
attempted, than the new question arose : How might 
this acquired good be imparted to others, perhaps 
in equal need thereof: how could the Philosophy of 
Clothes, and the Author of such Philosophy, be 
brought home, in any measure, to the business and 
bosoms of our own English Nation ? For if new-got 
gold is said to. burn the pockets till it be cast forth 
into circulation, much more may new truth. 

Here, however, difficulties occurred. The first 
thought naturally was to publish Article after Article 
on this remarkable Volume, in such widely-circulating 
Critical Journals as the Editor might stand connected 
with, or by money or love procure access to. But, on 
the other hand, was it not clear that such matter as 
must here be revealed, and treated of, might endan- 
ger the circulation of any Journal extant ? If, indeed 
all party-divisions in the State could have been abol- 
ished, Whig, Tory, and Radical, embracing in dis- 
crepant union ; and all the Journals of the Nation 
could have been jumbled into one Journal, and the 
Philosophy of Clothes poured forth in incessant tor- 
rents therefrom, the attempt had seemed possible. 
But, alas, what vehicle of that sort have we, except 
Fraser's Magazine? A vehicle all strewed (figura- 
tively speaking) with the maddest Waterloo-Crackers, 
exploding distractively and destructively, wheresoever 
the mystified passenger stands or sits ; nay, in any 
case, understood to be, of late years, a vehicle full to 



chap. II. EDITORIAL DIFFICULTIES. 13 

overflowing, and inexorably shut! Besides, to state 
the Philosophy of Clothes without the Philosopher, 
the ideas of Teufelsdrockh without something of his 
personality, was it not to insure both of entire misap- 
prehension ? Now for Biography, had it been other- 
wise admissible, there were no adequate documents, 
no hope of obtaining such, but rather, owing to 
circumstances, a special despair. Thus did the 
Editor see himself, for the while, shut out from all 
public utterance of these extraordinary Doctrines, 
and constrained to revolve them, not without dis- 
quietude, in the dark depths of his own mind. 

So had it lasted for some months ; and now the 
Volume on Clothes, read and again read, was in sev- 
eral points becoming lucid and lucent ; the personal- 
ity of its Author more and more surprising, but, in 
spite of all that memory and conjecture could do, 
more and more enigmatic ; whereby the old dis- 
quietude seemed fast settling into fixed discontent, 
— when altogether unexpectedly arrives a Letter 
from Herr Hofrath Heuschrecke, our Professor's chief 
friend and associate in Weissnichtwo, with whom we 
had not previously corresponded. The Hofrath, after 
much quite extraneous matter, began dilating largely 
on the " agitation and attention " which the Philoso- 
phy of Clothes was exciting in its own German Re- 
public of Letters ; on the deep significance and 
tendency of his Friend's Volume ; and then, at 
length, with great circumlocution, hinted at the 
practicability of conveying "some knowledge of it, 
and of him, to England, and through England to the 
distant West : " a work on Professor Teufelsdrockh 



14 SARTOR RESARTUS. book i. 

" were undoubtedly welcome to the Fa?nily, the 
National, or any other of those patriotic Libraries, 
at present the glory of British Literature ; " might 
work revolutions in Thought ; and so forth ; — in 
conclusion, intimating not obscurely, that should the 
present Editor feel disposed to undertake a Biography 
of Teufelsdrockh, he, Hofrath Heuschrecke, had it in 
his power to furnish the requisite Documents. 

As in some chemical mixture, that has stood long 
evaporating, but would not crystallize, instantly when 
the wire or other fixed substance is introduced, crys- 
tallization commences, and rapidly proceeds till the 
whole is finished, so was it with the Editor's mind and 
this offer of Heuschrecke's. Form rose out of void 
solution and discontinuity ; like united itself with 
like in definite arrangement : and soon either in 
actual vision and possession, or in fixed reasonable 
hope, the image of the whole Enterprise had shaped 
itself, so to speak, into a solid mass. Cautiously yet 
courageously, through the twopenny post, application 
to the famed redoubtable Oliver Yorke was now 
made : an interview, interviews with that singular 
man have taken place ; with more of assurance on our 
side, with less of satire (at least of open satire) on 
his, than we anticipated; — for the rest, with such 
issue as is now visible. As to those same " patriotic 
Libraries," the Hofratlvs counsel could only be 
viewed with silent amazement ; but with his offer of 
Documents we joyfully and almost instantaneously 
closed. Thus, too, in the sure expectation of these, 
we already see our task begun ; and this our Sartor 
Resartus, which is properly a "Life and Opinions 
of Herr Teufelsdrockh, 11 hourly advancing. 



chap. ir. EDITORIAL DIFFICULTIES. 15 

Of our fitness for the Enterprise, to which we have 
such title and vocation, it were perhaps uninteresting 
to say more. Let the British reader study and enjoy, 
in simplicity of heart, what is here presented him, 
and with whatever metaphysical acumen and talent 
for meditation he is possessed of. Let him strive to 
keep a free, open sense ; cleared from the mists of 
prejudice, above all from the paralysis of cant ; and 
directed rather to the Book itself than to the Editor 
of the Book. Who or what such Editor may be, 
must remain conjectural, and even insignificant : x it 
is a voice publishing tidings of the Philosophy of 
Clothes ; undoubtedly a Spirit addressing Spirits : 
whoso hath ears, let him hear. 

On one other point the Editor thinks it needful to 
give warning : namely, that he is animated with a 
true though perhaps a feeble attachment to the Insti- 
tutions of our Ancestors ; and minded to defend 
these, according to ability, at all hazards ; nay, it 
was partly with a view to such defence that he 
engaged in this undertaking. To stem, or if that be 
impossible, profitably to divert the current of Inno- 
vation, such a Volume as TeufelsdrocklVs, if cun- 
ningly planted down, were no despicable pile, or 
floodgate, in the logical wear. 

For the rest, be it nowise apprehended, that any 
personal connection of ours with Teufelsdrockh, 
Heuschrecke, or this Philosophy of Clothes, can per- 
vert our judgment, or sway us to extenuate or exag- 

1 With us even he still communicates in some sort of mask, 
or muffler : and, we have reason to think, under a feigned name ! 
— O. Y. 



1 6 SARTOR RESARTUS. book I. 

gerate. Powerless, we venture to promise, are those 
private Compliments themselves. Grateful they may 
well be ; as generous illusions of friendship ; as fair 
mementos of bygone unions, of those nights and 
suppers of the gods, when, lapped in the symphonies 
and harmonies of Philosophic Eloquence, though 
with baser accompaniments, the present Editor 
revelled in that feast of reason, never since vouch- 
safed him in so full measure ! But what then ? 
Amicus Plato, magis a?nica ve?'itas ; Teufelsdrockh 
is our friend, Truth is our divinity. In our historical 
and critical capacity, we hope we are strangers to all 
the world ; have feud or favor with no one, — save 
indeed the Devil, with whom, as with the Prince of 
Lies and Darkness, we do at all times wage interne- 
cine war. This assurance, at an epoch when puffery 
and quackery have reached a height unexampled in 
the annals of mankind, and even English Editors, 
like Chinese Shopkeepers, must write on their door- 
lintels No cheating here, — we thought it good to 
premise. 



CHAPTER III. 

REMINISCENCES. 

To the Author's private circle the appearance of 
this singular Work on Clothes must have occasioned 
little less surprise than it has to the rest of the world. 
For ourselves, at least, few things have been more 
unexpected. Professor Teufelsdrockh, at the period 



chap. in. REMINISCENCES. 17 

of our acquaintance with him, seemed to lead a quite 
still and self-contained life : a man devoted to the 
higher Philosophies, indeed ; yet more likely, if he 
published at all, to publish a refutation of Hegel and 
Bardili, both of whom, strangely enough, he included 
under a common ban ; than to descend, as he has 
here done, into the angry noisy Forum, with an 
Argument that cannot but exasperate and divide. 
Not, that we can remember, was the Philosophy of 
Clothes once touched upon between us. If through 
the high, silent, meditative Transcendentalism of our 
Friend we detected any practical tendency whatever, 
it was at most Political, and towards a certain pros- 
pective, and for the present quite speculative, Radi- 
calism ; as indeed some correspondence, on his part, 
with Herr Oken of Jena was now and then suspected , 
though his special contributions to the Isis could 
never be more than surmised at. But, at all events, 
nothing Moral, still less anything Didactico-Reli- 
gious, was looked for from him. 

Well do we recollect the last words he spoke in 
our hearing ; which indeed, with the Night they were 
uttered in, are to be forever remembered. Lifting 
his huge tumbler of Gukguk, 1 and for a moment 
lowering his tobacco-pipe, he stood up in full coffee- 
house (it was Zur Griinen Gans, the largest in 
Weiss nichtwo, where all the Virtuosity, and nearly 
all the Intellect of the place assembled of an evening) ; 
and there, with low, soul-stirring tone, and the look 
truly of an angel, though whether of a white or of a 
black one might be dubious, proposed this toast: 

1 Gukguk is unhappily only an academical — beer. 



1 8 SARTOR RESARTUS* book i 

Die Sache der Armen in Gottes ttnd Teufels Namen 
(The Cause of the Poor, in Heaven's name and 

's) ! One full shout, breaking the leaden silence ; 

then a gurgle of innumerable emptying bumpers, 
again followed by universal cheering, returned him 
loud acclaim. It was the finale of the night : resuming 
their pipes ; in the highest enthusiasm, amid volumes 
of tobacco-smoke ; triumphant, cloud-capt without 
and within, the assembly broke up, each to his 
thoughtful pillow. Bleibt dock ein echter Spass- und 
Galgen-vogel, said several ; meaning thereby that, 
one day, he would probably be hanged for his demo- 
cratic sentiments. Wo steckt dock der Schalk ? added 
they, looking round : but Teufelsdrockh had retired 
by private alleys, and the Compiler of these pages 
beheld him no more. 

In such scenes has it been our lot to live with this 
Philosopher, such estimate to form of his purposes 
and powers. And yet, thou brave Teufelsdrockh, 
who could tell what lurked in thee? Under those 
thick locks of thine, so long and lank, overlapping 
roof-wise the gravest face we ever in this world saw, 
there dwelt a most busy brain. In thy eyes too, 
deep under their shaggy brows, and looking out so 
still and dreamy, have we not noticed gleams of an 
ethereal or else a diabolic fire, and half-fancied that 
their stillness was but the rest of infinite motion, the 
sleep of a spinning-top? Thy little figure, there as, 
in loose ill-brushed threadbare habiliments, thou 
sattest, amid litter and lumber, whole days, to " think 
and smoke tobacco, 11 held in it a mighty heart. The 
secrets of man's Life were laid open to thee ; thou 



CHAP. ill. REMINISCENCES. 19 

sawest into the mystery of the Universe, farther than 
another ; thou hadst in petto thy remarkable Volume 
on Clothes. Nay, was there not in that clear logi- 
cally-founded Transcendentalism of thine ; still more, 
in thy meek, silent, deep-seated Sansculottism, com- 
bined with a true princely Courtesy of inward nature, 
the visible rudiments of such speculation? But 
great men are too often unknown, or what is worse, 
misknown. Already, when we dreamed not of it, 
the warp of thy remarkable Volume lay on the loom ; 
and silently, mysterious shuttles were putting-in the 
woof! 

How the Hofrath Heuschrecke is to furnish bio- 
graphical data, in this case, may be a curious ques- 
tion ; the answer of which, however, is happily not our 
concern, but his. To us it appeared, after repeated 
trial, that in Weissnichtwo, from the archives or 
memories of the best-informed classes, no Biography 
of Teufelsdrockh was to be gathered ; not so much as 
a false one. He was a stranger there, wafted thither 
by what is called the course of circumstances ; con- 
cerning whose parentage, birthplace, prospects, or 
pursuits, curiosity had indeed made inquiries, but 
satisfied herself with the most indistinct replies. 
For himself, he was a man so still and altogether 
unparticipating, that to question him even afar off on 
such particulars was a thing of more than usual 
delicacy : besides, in his sly way, he had ever some 
quaint turn, not without its satirical edge, wherewith 
to divert such intrusions, and deter you from the 
like. Wits spoke of him secretly as if he were a 



20 SARTOR RESARTUS. BOOK I. 

kind of Melchizedek, without father or mother of any 
kind ; sometimes, with reference to his great historic 
and statistic knowledge, and the vivid way he had of 
expressing himself like an eye-witness of distant 
transactions and scenes, they called him the Ewige. 
Jude, Everlasting, or as we say, Wandering Jew. 

To the most, indeed, he had become not so much 
a Man as a Thing ; which Thing doubtless they 
were accustomed to see, and with satisfaction; 
but no more thought of accounting for than for the 
fabrication of their daily Allgemeine Zeitung, or the 
domestic habits of the Sun. Both were there and 
welcome ; the world enjoyed what good was in them, 
and thought no more of the matter. The man 
Teufelsdrockh passed and repassed, in his little circle, 
as one of those originals and nondescripts, more fre- 
quent in German Universities than elsewhere ; of 
whom, though you see them alive, and feel certain 
enough that they must have a History, no History 
seems to be discoverable ; or only such as men give 
of mountain rocks and antediluvian ruins : That 
they have been created by unknown agencies, are in 
a state of gradual decay, and for the present reflect 
light and resist pressure ; that is, are visible and 
tangible objects in this phantasm world, where so 
much other mystery is. 

It was to be remarked that though, by title and 
diploma, Professor der Allerley-Wissenschaft, or as 
we should say in English, "Professor of Things in 
General, 1 ' he had never delivered any Course ; perhaps 
never been incited thereto by any public furtherance 
or requisition. To all appearance, the enlightened 



chap. in. REMINISCENCES. 21 

Government of Weissnichtwo, in founding their New 
University, imagined they had done enough, if, "in 
times like ours," as the half-official Program expressed 
it, "when all things are, rapidly or slowly, resolving 
themselves into Chaos, a Professorship of this kind 
had been established ; whereby, as occasion called, 
the task of bodying somewhat forth again from such 
Chaos might be, even slightly, facilitated.'" That 
actual Lectures should be held, and Public Classes 
for the " Science of Things in General, 1 ' they doubt- 
less considered premature ; on which ground too they 
had only established the Professorship, nowise en- 
dowed it ; so that Teufelsdrockh, " recommended by 
the highest Names," had been promoted thereby to a 
Name merely. 

Great, among the more enlightened classes, was 
the admiration of this new Professorship : how an 
enlightened Government had seen into the Want of 
the Age {Zeitbediirfniss} ; how at length, instead of 
Denial and Destruction, we were to have a science of 
Affirmation and Reconstruction ; and Germany and 
Weissnichtwo were where they should be, in the van- 
guard of the world. Considerable also was the won- 
der at the new Professor, dropt opportunely enough 
into the nascent University ; so able to lecture, should 
occasion call ; so ready to hold his peace for indefinite 
periods, should 'an enlightened Government consider 
that occasion did not call. But such admiration and 
such wonder, being followed by no act to keep them 
living, could last only nine days ; and, long before 
our visit to that scene, had quite died away. The 
more cunning heads thought it was all an expiring 



2 2 SARTOR RESARTUS. book I. 

clutch at popularity, on the part of a Minister, whom 
domestic embarrassments, court intrigues, old age, 
and dropsy soon afterwards finally drove from the 
helm. 

As for Teufelsdrockh, except by his nightly ap- 
pearances at the Grtine Gaus, Weissnichtwo saw 
little of him, felt little of him. Here, over his tum- 
bler of Gukguk, he sat reading Journals ; sometimes 
contemplatively looking into the clouds of his 
tobacco-pipe, without other visible employment : 
always, from his mild ways, an agreeable phenomenon 
there ; more especially when he opened his lips for 
speech ; on which occasions the whole Coffee-house 
would hush itself into silence, as if sure to hear 
something noteworthy. Nay, perhaps to hear a 
whole series and river of the most memorable utter- 
ances ; such as, when once thawed, he would for 
hours indulge in, with fit audience : and the more 
memorable, as issuing from a head apparently not 
more interested in them, not more conscious of them, 
than is the sculptured stone head of some public 
fountain, which through its brass mouth-tube emits 
water to the worthy and the unworthy ; careless 
whether it be for cooking victuals or quenching con- 
flagrations ; indeed, maintains the same earnest 
assiduous look, whether any water be flowing or not. 

To the Editor of these sheets, as to a young enthu- 
siastic Englishman, however unworthy, Teufelsdrockh 
opened himself perhaps more than to the most. Pity 
only that we could not then half guess his importance, 
and scrutinize him with due power of vision ! We en- 
joyed, what not three men in Weissnichtwo could 



chap. in. REMINISCENCES. 23 

boast of, a certain degree of access to the Professor's 
private domicile. It was the attic floor of the highest 
house in the Wahngasse ; and might truly be called 
the pinnacle of Weissnichtwo, for it rose sheer up 
above the contiguous roofs, themselves rising from 
elevated ground. Moreover, with its windows it 
looked towards "all the four Orte, or as the Scotch 
say, and we ought to say, Airts : the sitting- 
room itself commanded three ; another came to view 
in the Schlafgemach (bed-room) at the opposite end ; 
to say nothing of the kitchen, which offered two, as it 
were, duplicates, and showing nothing new. So that 
it was in fact the speculum or watch-tower of Teufels- 
drockh ; wherefrom, sitting at ease, he might see the 
whole life-circulation of that considerable City ; the 
streets and lanes of which, with all their doing and 
driving (Thitn und Treibeti), were for the most part 
visible there. 

" I look down into all that wasp-nest or bee-hive," 
have we heard him say, " and witness their wax- 
laying and honey-making, and poison-brewing, and 
choking by sulphur. From the Palace esplanade, 
where music plays while Serene Highness is pleased 
to eat his victuals, down to the low lane, where in her 
door-sill the aged widow, knitting for a thin livelihood, 
sits to feel the afternoon sun, I see it all ; for, except 
the Schlosskirche weathercock, no biped stands so 
high. Couriers arrive bestrapped and bebooted, 
bearing Joy and Sorrow bagged-up in pouches of 
leather : there, topladen, and with four swift horses, 
rolls-in the country Baron and his household ; here, 
on timber-leg, the lamed Soldier hops painfully along, 



24 SARTOR RESARTUS. book i. 

begging alms : a thousand carriages, and wains and 
cars, come tumbling-in with Food, with young Rus- 
ticity, and other Raw Produce, inanimate or animate, 
and go tumbling out again with Produce manufac- 
tured. That living flood, pouring through these 
streets, of all qualities and ages, knowest thou whence 
it is coming, whither it is going? Aus der Ewigkeit, 
zu der Ewigkeit kin : From Eternity, onwards to 
Eternity ! These are Apparitions : what else ? Are 
they not Souls rendered visible : in Bodies, that took 
shape and will lose it, melting into air? Their solid 
Pavement is a Picture of the Sense ; they walk on 
the bosom of Nothing, blank Time is behind them 
and before them. Or fanciest thou, the red and yel- 
low Clothes-screen yonder, with spurs on its heels 
and feather in its crown, is but of To-day, without a 
Yesterday or a To-morrow ; and had not rather its 
Ancestor alive when Hengst and Horsa overran thy 
Island? Friend, thou seest here a living link in that 
Tissue of History, which inweaves all Being : watch 
well, or it will be past thee, and seen no more." 

" Ack, mein Lieberl" said he once, at midnight, 
when we had returned from the Coffee-house in rather 
earnest talk, " it is a true sublimity to dwell here. 
These fringes of lamplight, struggling up through 
smoke and thousandfold exhalation, some fathoms 
into the ancient reign of Night, what thinks Bootes of 
them, as he leads his Hunting-Dogs over the Zenith 
in their leash of sidereal fire? That stifled hum of 
Midnight, when Traffic has lain down to rest ; 
and the chariot-wheels of Vanity, still rolling here 
and there through distant streets, are bearing her to 



chap. in. REMINISCENCES. 25 

Halls roofed-in, and lighted to the due pitch for her; 
and only Vice and Misery, to prowl or to moan like 
nightbirds, are abroad : that hum, I say, like the 
stertorous, unquiet slumber of sick Life, is heard in 
Heaven ! Oh, under that hideous coverlet of vapors, 
and putrefactions, and unimaginable gases, what a 
Fermenting-vat lies simmering and hid ! The joyful 
and the sorrowful are there ; men are dying there, 
men are being born ; men are praying, — on the other 
side of a brick partition, men are cursing ; and around 
them all is the vast, void Night. The proud Grandee 
still lingers in his perfumed saloons, or reposes within 
damask curtains ; Wretchedness cowers into truckle- 
beds, or shivers hunger-stricken into its lair of straw : 
in obscure cellars, Rouge- et-Noir languidly emits its 
voice-of-destiny to haggard hungry Villains ; while 
Councillors of State sit plotting, and playing their 
high chess-game, whereof the pawns are Men. The 
Lover whispers his mistress that the coach is ready ; 
and she, full of hope and fear, glides down, to fly 
with him over the borders : the Thief, still more 
silently, sets-to his picklocks and crowbars, or lurks 
in wait till the watchmen first snore in their boxes. 
Gay mansions, with supper-rooms and dancing- 
rooms, are full of light and music and high-swelling 
hearts ; but, in the Condemned Cells, the pulse of 
life beats tremulous and faint, and bloodshot eyes 
look-out through the darkness, which is around and 
within, for the light of a stern last morning. Six men 
are to be hanged on the morrow : comes no hammer- 
ing from the Rabenstein? — their gallows must even 
now be a-building. Upwards of five-hundred-thou- 



26 SARTOR RESARTUS. book l 

sand two-legged animals without feathers lie round 
us, in horizontal positions ; their heads all in night- 
caps, and full of the foolishest dreams. Riot cries 
aloud, and staggers and swaggers in his rank dens of 
shame ; and the Mother, with streaming hair, kneels 
over her pallid dying infant, whose cracked lips only 
her tears now moisten. — All these heaped and 
huddled together, with nothing but a little carpentry 
and masonry between them ; — crammed in, like 
salted fish in their barrel ; — or weltering, shall I say, 
like an Egyptian pitcher of tamed vipers, each strug- 
gling to get its head above the others : such work 
goes on under that smoke-counterpane! — But I, 
mein werther, sit above it all ; I am alone with the 
Stars." 

We looked in his face to see whether, in the utter- 
ance of such extraordinary Night-thoughts, no feeling 
might be traced there ; but with the light we had, 
which indeed was only a single tallow-light, and far 
enough from the window, nothing save that old 
calmness and fixedness was visible. 

These were the Professor's talking seasons : most 
commonly he spoke in mere monosyllables, or sat 
altogether silent and smoked ; while the visitor had 
liberty either to say what he listed, receiving for answer 
an occasional grunt ; or to look round for a space, and 
then take himself away. It was a strange apartment ; 
full of books and tattered papers, and miscellaneous 
shreds of all conceivable substances, " united in a 
common element of dust." Books lay on tables, and 
below tables ; here fluttered a sheet of manuscript, 
there a torn handkerchief, or nightcap hastily thrown 



chap. in. REMINISCENCES. 27 

aside ; ink-bottles alternated with bread-crusts, 
coffee-pots, tobacco-boxes, Periodical Literature, and 
Bliicher Boots. Old Lieschen (Lisekin, 'Liza), who 
was his bed-maker and stove-lighter, his washer and 
wringer, cook, errand-maid, and general lionVpro- 
vider, and for the rest a very orderly creature, had 
no sovereign authority in this last citadel of Teufels- 
drockh ; only some once in the month she half-forcibly 
made her way thither, with broom and duster, and 
(Teufelsdrockh hastily saving his manuscripts) 
effected a partial clearance, a jail-delivery of such 
lumber as was not Literary. These were her Erdbeben 
(earthquakes), which Teufelsdrockh dreaded worse 
than the pestilence ; nevertheless, to such length he 
had been forced to comply. Glad would he have 
been to sit here philosophizing forever, or till the 
litter, by accumulation, drove him out of doors : but 
Lieschen was his right-arm, and spoon, and necessary 
of life, and would not be flatly gainsaid. We can 
still remember the ancient woman 5 so silent that 
some thought her dumb ; deaf also you would often 
have supposed her ; for Teufelsdrockh, and Teufels- 
drockh only, would she serve or give heed to ; and 
with him she seemed to communicate chiefly by signs ; 
if it were not rather by some secret divination that 
she guessed all his wants, and supplied them. Assid- 
uous old dame ! she scoured, and sorted, and swept, 
in her kitchen, with the least possible violence to 
the ear ; yet all was tight and right there : hot and 
black came the coffee ever at the due moment ; and 
the speechless Lieschen herself looked out on you, 
from under her clean white coif with its lappets, 



28 SARTOR RESARTUS. book i. 

through her clean withered face and wrinkles, with a 
look of helpful intelligence, almost of benevo- 
lence. 

Few strangers, as above hinted, had admittance 
hither : the only one we ever saw there, ourselves 
excepted, was the Hofrath Heuschrecke, already- 
known, by name and expectation, to the readers of 
these pages. To us, at that period, Herr Heuschrecke 
seemed one of those purse-mouthed, crane-necked, 
clean-brushed, pacific individuals, perhaps sufficiently 
distinguished in society by this fact, that, in dry 
weather or in wet, ' ' they never appear without their 
umbrella.'" Had we not known with what " little 
wisdom " the world is governed ; and how, in Ger- 
many as elsewhere, the ninety-and-nine Public Men 
can for most part be but mute train-bearers to the 
hundredth, perhaps but stalking-horses and willing or 
unwilling dupes, — it might have seemed wonderful 
how Herr Heuschrecke should be named a Rath, or 
Councillor, and Counsellor, even in Weissnichtwo. 
What counsel to any man, or to any woman, could 
this particular Hofrath give ; in w^ose loose, zigzag 
figure ; in whose thin visage, as it went jerking to 
and fro, in minute incessant fluctuation, — you traced 
rather confusion worse confounded ; at most, Timidity 
and physical Cold? Some indeed said withal, he was 
" the very Spirit of Love embodied : " blue earnest 
eyes, full of sadness and kindness ; purse ever open, 
and so forth ; the whole of which, we shall now 
hope, for many reasons, was not quite groundless. 
Nevertheless friend Teufelsdrockh's outline, who 
indeed handled the burin like few in these cases, 



chap. in. REMINISCENCES. 29 

was probably the best : Er hat Gemuth und Geist, 
hat wenigstens gehabt, dock ohne Organ, ohne Schick- 
sals-Gnnst ; ist gegenw'drtig aber halb-zerruttet, halb- 
erstarrt, " He has heart and talent, at least has had 
such, yet without fit mode of utterance, or favor of 
Fortune ; and so is now half-cracked, half-congealed." 
— What the Hofrath shall think of this when he sees 
it, readers may wonder : we, safe in the stronghold 
of Historical Fidelity, are careless. 

The main point, doubtless, for us all, is his love of 
Teufelsdrockh, which indeed was also by far the most 
decisive feature of Heuschrecke himself. We are 
enabled to assert that he hung on the Professor with 
the fondness of a Boswell for his Johnson. And 
perhaps with the like return ; for Teufelsdrockh 
treated his gaunt admirer with little outward regard, 
as some half-rational or altogether irrational friend, 
and at best loved him out of gratitude and by habit. 
On the other hand, it was curious to observe with 
what reverent kindness, and a sort of fatherly pro- 
tection, our Hofrath, being the elder, richer, and as 
he fondly imagined far more practically influential of 
the two, looked and tended on his little Sage, whom 
he seemed to consider as a living oracle. Let but 
Teufelsdrockh open his mouth, Heuschrecke's also 
unpuckered itself into a free doorway, besides his 
being all eye and all ear, so that nothing might be 
lost : and then, at every pause in the harangue, he 
gurgled-out his pursy chuckle of a cough-laugh (for 
the machinery of laughter took some time to get in 
motion, and seemed crank and slack), or else his 
twanging nasal Bravo! Das glaub r ick; in either 



2>o SAX TOR RESARTUS. book i. 

case, by way of heartiest approval. In short, if 
Teufelsdrockh was Dalai-Lama, of which, except 
perhaps in his self-seclusion, and god-like indifference, 
there was no symptom, then might Heuschrecke pass 
for his chief Talapoin, to whom no dough-pill he 
could knead and publish was other than medicinal 
and sacred. 

In such environment, social, domestic, physical, 
did Teufelsdrockh, at the time of our acquaintance, 
and most likely does he still, live and meditate. 
Here, perched-up in his high Wahngasse watch-tower, 
and often, in solitude, outwatching the Bear, it was 
that the indomitable Inquirer fought all his battles 
with Dulness and Darkness ; here, in all probability, 
that he wrote this surprising Volume on Clothes. 
Additional particulars : of his age, which was of that 
standing middle sort you could only guess at ; of his 
wide surtout ; the color of his trousers, fashion of 
his broad-brimmed steeple-hat, and so forth, we 
might report, but do not. — The Wisest truly is, in 
these times, the Greatest ; so that an enlightened 
curiosity, leaving Kings and suchlike to rest very 
much on their own basis, turns more and more to 
the Philosophic Class : nevertheless, what reader 
expects that, with all our writing and reporting, 
Teufelsdrockh could be brought home to him, till 
once the Documents arrive? His Life, Fortunes, and 
Bodily Presence, are as yet hidden from us, or matter 
only of faint conjecture. But, on the other hand, 
does not his Soul lie enclosed in this remarkable 
Volume, much more truly than Pedro Garcia's did 
in the buried Bag of Doubloons? To the soul of 



chap. IV. CHARACTERISTICS. 31 

Diogenes Teufelsdrockh, to his opinions, namely, on 
the " Origin and Influence of Clothes," we for the 
present gladly return. 



CHAPTER IV. 

CHARACTERISTICS. 

It were a piece of vain flattery to pretend that this 
Work on Clothes entirely contents us ; that it is not, 
like all works of genius, like the very Sun, which, 
though the highest published creation, or work of 
genius, has nevertheless black spots and troubled 
nebulosities amid its effulgence, — a mixture of in- 
sight, inspiration, with dulness, double-vision, and 
even utter blindness. 

Without committing ourselves to those enthusias- 
tic praises and prophesyings of the Weissnichtwd 1 - 
sche Anzeiger, we admitted that the Book had in a 
high degree excited us to self-activity, which is the 
best effect of any book ; that it had even operated 
changes in our way of thought ; nay, that it promised 
to prove, as it were, the opening of a new mine-shaft, 
wherein the whole world of Speculation might hence- 
forth dig to unknown depths. More especially it may 
now be declared that Professor Teufelsdrockh's 
acquirements, patience of research, philosophic and 
even poetic vigor, are here made indisputably mani- 
fest ; and unhappily no less his prolixity and tortu- 
osity and manifold ineptitude. - that, on the whole, as 
in opening new mine-shafts is not unreasonable, 



32 SARTOR RESARTUS. book i. 

there is much rubbish in his Book, though likewise 
specimens of almost invaluable ore. A paramount 
popularity in England we cannot promise him. Apart 
from the choice of such a topic as Clothes, too often 
the manner of treating it betokens in the Author a 
rusticity and academic seclusion, unblamable, indeed 
inevitable in a German, but fatal to his success with 
our oublic. 

Of good society Teufelsdrockh appears to have 
seen little, or has mostly forgotten what he saw. He 
speaks-out with a strange plainness ; calls many 
things by their mere dictionary names. To him 
the Upholsterer is no Pontiff, neither is any Drawing- 
room a Temple, were it never so begiit and over- 
hung : "a whole immensity of Brussels carpets, 
and pier-glasses, and or-molu," as he himself expresses 
it, " cannot hide from me that such Drawing-room is 
simply a section of Infinite Space, where so many 
God-created Souls do for the time meet together." 
To Teufelsdrockh the highest Duchess is respectable, 
is venerable ; but nowise for her pearl bracelets and 
Malines laces : in his eyes, the star of a Lord is little less 
and little more than the broad button of Birmingham 
spelter in a Clown's smock ; " each is an implement," 
he says, "in its kind; a tag for hooking-together ; 
and, for the rest, was dug from the earth, and ham- 
mered on a stithy before smith's fingers." Thus does 
the Professor look in men's faces with a strange 
impartiality, a strange scientific freedom ; like a man 
unversed in the higher circles, like a man dropped 
thither from the Moon. Rightly considered, it is in 
this peculiarity, running through his whole system 



chap. iv. CHARACTERISTICS. 33 

of thought, that all these short-comings, over-shoot- 
ings, and multiform perversities, take rise : if indeed 
they have not a second source, also natural enough, 
in his Transcendental Philosophies, and humor of 
looking at all Matter and Material things as Spirit ; 
whereby truly his case were but the more hopeless, 
the more lamentable. 

To the Thinkers of this nation, however, of which 
class it is firmly believed there are individuals yet 
extant, we can safely recommend the Work : nay, 
who knows but among the fashionable ranks too, if 
it be true, as Teufelsdrockh maintains, that "within 
the most starched cravat there passes a windpipe and 
weasand, and under the thickliest embroidered waist- 
coat beats a heart," — the force of that rapt earnest- 
ness may be felt, and here and there an arrow of the 
soul pierce through? In our wild Seer, shaggy, 
unkempt, like a Baptist living on locusts and wild 
honey, there is an untutored energy, a silent, as it 
were unconscious, strength, which, except in the 
higher walks of Literature, must be rare. Many 
a deep glance, and often with unspeakable precision, 
has he cast into mysterious Nature, and the still 
more mysterious Life of Man. Wonderful it is with 
what cutting words, now and then, he severs asunder 
the confusion ; shears down, were it furlongs deep, 
into the true centre of the matter ; and there not 
only hits the nail on the head, but with crushing 
force smites it home, and buries it. — On the other 
hand, let us be free to admit, he is the most unequal 
writer breathing. Often after some such feat, he 
will play truant for long pages, and go dawdling and 



34 SARTOR RESARTUS. book r. 

dreaming, and mumbling and maundering the merest 
commonplaces, as if he were asleep with eyes open, 
which indeed he is. 

Of his boundless Learning, and how all reading 
and literature in most known tongues, from Sanck- 
oniathon to Dr. Lingard, from your Oriental Shasters, 
and Talmuds, and Korans, with CassinPs Siamese 
Tables, and Laplace's Micaiiique Celeste, down to 
Robinson Crusoe and the Belfast Town and Country 
Almanack, are familiar to him, — we shall say 
nothing : for unexampled as it is with us, to the 
Germans such universality of study passes without 
wonder, as a thing commendable, indeed, but natural, 
indispensable, and there of course. A man that 
devotes his life to learning, shall he not be learned? 

In respect of style our Author manifests the same 
genial capability, marred too often by the same rude- 
ness, inequality, and apparent want of intercourse 
with the higher classes. Occasionally, as above 
hinted, we find consummate vigor, a true inspiration ; 
his burning thoughts step forth in fit burning words, 
like so many full-formed Minervas, issuing amid 
flame and splendor from Jove's head; a rich, idio- 
matic diction, picturesque allusions, fiery poetic 
emphasis, or quaint tricksy turns : all the graces and 
terrors of a wild Imagination, wedded to the clearest 
Intellect, alternate in beautiful vicissitude. Were it 
not that sheer sleeping and soporific passages ; cir- 
cumlocutions, repetitions, touches even of pure doting 
jargon, so often intervene ! On the whole, Professor 
Teufelsdrockh is not a cultivated writer. Of his 
sentences perhaps not more than nine-tenths stand 



chap. iv. CHARACTERISTICS. 35 

straight on their legs ; the remainder are in quite 
angular attitudes, buttressed-up by props (of paren- 
theses and dashes) , and ever with this or the other 
tagrag hanging from them ; a few even sprawl-out 
helplessly on all sides, quite broken-backed and 
dismembered. Nevertheless, in almost his very worst 
moods, there lies in him a singular attraction. A 
wild tone pervades the whole utterance of the man, 
like its keynote and regulator ; now screwing itself 
aloft as into the Song of Spirits, or else the shrill 
mockery of Fiends ; now sinking in cadences, not 
without melodious heartiness, though sometimes 
abrupt enough, into the common pitch, when we 
hear it only as a monotonous hum ; of which hum 
the true character is extremely difficult to fix. Up to 
this hour we have never fully satisfied ourselves 
whether it is a tone and hum of real Humor, which 
we reckon among the very highest qualities of genius, 
or some echo of mere Insanity and Inanity, which 
doubtless ranks below the very lowest. 

Under a like difficulty, in spite even of our personal 
intercourse, do we still lie with regard to the Pro- 
fessor's moral feeling. Gleams of an ethereal love 
burst forth from him, soft wailings of infinite pity ; 
he could clasp the whole Universe into his bosom, 
and keep it warm ; it seems as if under that rude 
exterior there dwelt a very seraph. Then again he is 
so sly and still, so imperturbably saturnine ; shows 
such indifference, malign coolness towards all that 
men strive after ; and ever with some half-visible 
wrinkle of a bitter sardonic humor, if indeed it be not 
mere stolid callousness, — that you look on him 



$6 SARTOR RESARTUS. book i. 

almost with a shudder, as on some incarnate Mephis- 
topheles, to whom this great terrestrial and celestial 
Round, after all, were but some huge foolish Whir- 
ligig, where kings and beggars, and angels and demons, 
and stars and street-sweepings, were chaotically 
whirled, in which only children could take interest. 
His look, as we mentioned, is probably the gravest 
ever seen : yet it is not of that cast-iron gravity 
frequent enough among our own Chancery suitors ; 
but rather the gravity as of some silent, high-encir- 
cled mountain-pool, perhaps the crater of an extinct 
volcano ; into whose black deeps you fear to gaze : 
those eyes, those lights that sparkle in it, may indeed 
be reflexes of the heavenly Stars, but perhaps also 
glances from the region of Nether Fire ! 

Certainly a most involved, self-secluded, altogether 
enigmatic nature, this of Teufelsdrockh ! Here, how- 
ever, we gladly recall to mind that once we saw him 
laugh ; once only, perhaps it was the first and last 
time in his life ; but then such a peal of laughter, 
enough to have awakened the Seven Sleepers ! It 
was of Jean Paul's doing : some single billow in that 
vast World-Mahlstrom of Humor, with its heaven- 
kissing coruscations, which is now, alas, all con- 
gealed in the frost of death ! The large-bodied Poet 
and the small, both large enough in soul, sat talking 
miscellaneously together, the present Editor being 
privileged to listen ; and now Paul, in his serious 
way, was giving one of those inimitable "Extra- 
harangues ; " and, as it chanced, On the Proposal for 
a Cast-metal Ki?ig: gradually a light kindled in our 
Professor's eyes and face, a beaming, mantling, love- 



chap. iv. CHARACTERISTICS. 37 

liest light ; through those murky features, a radiant, 
ever-young Apollo looked ; and he burst forth like 
the neighing of all TattersalPs, — tears streaming 
down his cheeks, pipe held aloft, foot clutched into 
the air, — loud, long-continuing, uncontrollable; a 
laugh not of the face and diaphragm only, but of the 
whole man from head to heel. The present Editor, 
who laughed indeed, yet with measure, began to fear 
all was not right : however, Teufelsdrockh composed 
himself, and sank into his old stillness ; on his in- 
scrutable countenance there was, if anything, a slight 
look of shame ; and Richter himself could not rouse 
him again. Readers who have any tincture of Psy- 
chology know how much is to be inferred from this ; 
and that no man who has once heartily and wholly 
laughed can be altogether irreclaimably bad. How 
much lies in Laughter : the cipher-key, wherewith we 
decipher the whole man ! Some men wear an ever- 
lasting barren simper ; in the smile of others lies a 
cold glitter as of ice : the fewest are able to laugh, 
what can be called laughing, but only sniff and titter 
and snigger from the throat outwards ; or at best, 
produce some whiffling husky cachinnation, as if 
they were laughing through wool : of none such comes 
good. The man who cannot laugh is not only fit for 
treasons, stratagems, and spoils ; but his whole life is 
already a treason and a stratagem. 

Considered as an Author, Herr Teufelsdrockh has 
one scarcely pardonable fault, doubtless his worst : 
an almost total want of arrangement. In this remark- 
able Volume, it is true, his adherence to the mere 
course of Time produces, through the Narrative 



38 SARTOR RESARTUS. book i. 

portions, a certain show of outward method ; but of 
true logical method and sequence there is too little. 
Apart from its multifarious sections and subdivisions, 
the Work naturally falls into two Parts ; a Historical- 
Descriptive, and a Philosophical-Speculative : but 
falls, unhappily, by no firm line of demarcation ; in 
that labyrinthic combination, each Part overlaps, and 
indents, and indeed runs quite through the other. 
Many sections are of a debatable rubric, or even 
quite nondescript and unnamable ; whereby the Book 
not only loses in accessibility, but too often distresses 
us like some mad banquet, wherein all courses had 
been confounded, and fish and flesh, soup and solid, 
oyster-sauce, lettuces, Rhine-wine and French mus- 
tard, were hurled into one huge tureen or trough, 
and the hungry Public invited to help itself. To 
bring what order we can out of this Chaos shall be 
part of our endeavor. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE WORLD IN CLOTHES. 

" As Montesquieu wrote a Spirit of Laws,' 1 '' ob- 
serves our Professor, " so could I write a Spirit of 
Clothes; thus, with an Esprit des Lois, properly an 
Esprit de Coittumes , we should have an Esprit de 
Costumes. For neither in tailoring nor in legislating 
does man proceed by mere Accident, but the hand 
is ever guided on by mysterious operations of the 
mind. In all his Modes, and habilatory endeavors, 



chap. v. THE WORLD IN CLOTHES. 39 

an Architectural Idea will be found lurking ; his Body 
and the Cloth are the site and materials whereon and 
whereby his beautified edifice, of a Person, is to be 
built. Whether he flow gracefully out in folded 
mantles, based on light sandals ; tower-up in high 
headgear, from amid peaks, spangles and bell- 
girdles ; swell-out in starched ruffs, buckram stuffings, 
and monstrous tuberosities ; or girth himself into 
separate sections, and front the world an Agglomera- 
tion of four limbs, — will depend on the nature of 
such Architectural Idea : whether Grecian, Gothic, 
Later-Gothic, or altogether Modern, and Parisian or 
Anglo-Dandiacal. Again, what meaning lies in 
Color ! From the soberest drab to the high-flaming 
scarlet, spiritual idiosyncrasies unfold themselves in 
choice of Color : if the Cut betoken Intellect and 
Talent, so does the Color betoken Temper and 
Heart. In all which, among nations as among in- 
dividuals, there is an incessant, indubitable, though 
infinitely complex working of Cause and Effect : 
every snip of the Scissors has been regulated and 
prescribed by ever-active Influences, which doubtless 
to Intelligences of a superior order are neither in- 
visible nor illegible. 

" For such superior Intelligences a Cause-and- 
Effect Philosophy of Clothes, as of Laws, were prob- 
ably a comfortable winter-evening entertainment : 
nevertheless, for inferior Intelligences, like men, 
such Philosophies have always seemed to me unin- 
structive enough. Nay, what is your Montesquieu 
himself but a clever infant spelling Letters from a 
hieroglyphical prophetic Book, the lexicon of which 



4© SARTOR RESARTUS. book i. 

lies in Eternity, in Heaven? — Let any Cause-and- 
Effect Philosopher explain, not why I wear such and 
such a Garment, obey such and such a Law ; but 
even why / am here, to wear and obey anything ! — 
Much, therefore, if not the whole, of that same 
Spirit of Clothes 1 shall suppress, as hypothetical, 
ineffectual, and even impertinent : naked Facts, and 
Deductions drawn therefrom in quite another than 
that omniscient style, are my humbler and proper 
province." 

Acting on which prudent restriction, Teufelsdrockh 
has nevertheless contrived to take-in a well-nigh 
boundless extent of field ; at least, the boundaries 
too often lie quite beyond our horizon. Selection 
being indispensable, we shall here glance-over his 
First Part only in the most cursory manner. This 
First Part is, no doubt, distinguished by omnivorous 
learning, and utmost patience and fairness : at the same- 
time, in its results and delineations, it is much more 
likely to interest the Compilers of some Library of 
General, Entertaining, Useful, or even Useless Knowl- 
edge than the miscellaneous readers of these pages. 
Was it this Part of the Book which Heuschrecke had 
in view, when he recommended us to that joint-stock 
vehicle of publication, "at present the glory of 
British Literature"? If so, the Library Editors are 
welcome to dig in it for their own behoof. 

To the First Chapter, which turns on Paradise and 
Fig-leaves, and leads us into interminable disquisi- 
tions of a mythological, metaphorical, cabalistico-sar- 
torial and quite antediluvian cast, we shall content 
ourselves with giving an unconcerned approval. Still 



chap. v. THE WORLD IN CLOTHES. 41 

Jess have we to do with "Lilis, Adam's first wife, whom 
according to the Talmudists, he had before Eve, 
and who bore him, in that wedlock, the whole pro- 
geny of aerial, aquatic, and terrestrial Devils, 1 ' — very 
needlessly, we think. On this portion of the Work, 
with its profound glances into the Adam-Kadmon, 
or Primeval Element, here strangely brought into 
relation with the Nifl and Muspel (Darkness and 
Light) of the antique North, it may be enough to say, 
that its correctness of deduction, and depth of Tal- 
mudic and Rabbinical lore have filled perhaps not 
the worst Hebraist in Britain with something like 
astonishment. 

But, quitting this twilight region, Teufelsdrockh 
hastens from the Tower of Babel, to follow the disper- 
sion of Mankind over the whole habitable and habil- 
able globe. Walking by the light of Oriental, Pelas- 
gic, Scandinavian, Egyptian, Otaheitean, Ancient 
and Modern researches of every conceivable kind, 
he strives to give us in compressed shape (as the 
Niirnbergers give an Or bis Pictus) an Or bis Vestitus ; 
or view of the costumes of all mankind, in all coun- 
tries, in all times. It is here that to the Antiquarian, 
to the Historian, we can triumphantly say : Fall to ! 
Here is learning: an irregular Treasury, if you will ; 
but inexhaustible as the Hoard of King Nibelung, 
which twelve wagons in twelve days, at the rate of 
three journeys a day, could not carry off. Sheepskin 
cloaks and wampum belts ; phylacteries, stoles, albs ; 
chlamydes, togas, Chinese silks, Afghan shawls, 
trunk-hose, leather breeches, Celtic philibegs (though 
breeches, as the name Gallia Braccata indicates, are 



42 SARTOR RESARTUS. book i. 

the more ancient), Hussar cloaks, Vandyke tippets, 
ruffs, fardingales, are brought vividly before us, — 
even the Kilmarnock nightcap is not forgotten. For 
most part, too, we must admit that the Learning, 
heterogeneous as it is, and tumbled-down quite pell- 
mell, is true concentrated and purified Learning, the 
drossy parts smelted out and thrown aside. 

-Philosophical reflections intervene, and sometimes 
touching pictures of human life. Of this sort the 
following has surprised us. The first purpose of 
Clothes, as our Professor imagines, was not warmth 
or decency, but ornament. "Miserable indeed, 11 
says he, "was the condition of the Aboriginal Sav- 
age, glaring fiercely from under his fleece of hair, 
which with the beard reached down to his loins, and 
hung round him like a matted cloak ; the rest of his 
body sheeted in its thick natural fell. He loitered 
in the sunny glades of the forest, living on wild- 
fruits ; or, as the ancient Caledonian, squatted him- 
self in morasses, lurking for his bestial or human 
prey ; without implements, without arms, save the ball 
of heavy Flint, to which, that his sole possession 
and defence might not be lost, he had attached a long 
cord of plaited thongs ; thereby recovering as well as 
hurling it with deadly unerring skill. Nevertheless, 
the pains of Hunger and Revenge once satisfied, his 
next care was not Comfort but Decoration {Putz). 
Warmth he found in the toils of the chase ; or amid 
dried leaves, in his hollow tree, in his bark shed, or 
natural grotto : but for Decoration he must have 
Clothes. Nay, among wild people, we find tattooing 
and painting even prior to Clothes. The first spirit- 



chap. v. THE WORLD IN CLOTHES. 43 

ual want of a barbarous man is Decoration, as indeed 
we still see among the barbarous classes in civilized 
countries. 

"Reader, the heaven-inspired melodious Singer; 
loftiest Serene Highness ; nay thy own amber-locked, 
snow-and-rose-bloom Maiden, worthy to glide sylph- 
like almost on air, whom thou lovest, worshippest as 
a divine Presence, which, indeed, symbolically taken, 
she is, — has descended, like thyself, from that 
same hair-mantled, flint-hurling Aboriginal Anthropo- 
phagus ! Out of the eater cometh forth meat ; out of 
the strong cometh forth sweetness. What changes 
are wrought, not by Time, yet in Time ! For not 
Mankind only, but all that Mankind does or beholds, 
is in continual growth, regenesis and self-perfecting 
vitality. Cast forth thy Act, thy Word, into the 
ever-living, ever-working Universe : it is a seed-grain 
that cannot die ; unnoticed to-day (says one) , it will 
be found flourishing as a Banyan-grove (perhaps, 
alas, as a Hemlock-forest !) after a thousand years. 

" He who first shortened the labor of Copyists by 
device of Movable Types was disbanding hired Armies, 
and cashiering most Kings and Senates, and creating 
a whole new Democratic world : he had invented the 
Art of Printing. The first ground handful of Nitre, 
Sulphur, and Charcoal drove Monk Schwartz's pestle 
through the ceiling : what will the last do ? Achieve 
the final undisputed prostration of Force under 
Thought, of Animal courage under Spiritual. A 
simple invention it was in the old-world Grazier, — 
sick of lugging his slow Ox about the country till he 
got it bartered for corn or oil, — to take a piece of 



44 SARTOR RESARTUS. book i. 

Leather, and thereon scratch or stamp the mere 
Figure of an Ox (or Pecus) ; put it in his pocket, and 
call it Pecunia, Money. Yet hereby did Barter grow 
Sale, the Leather Money is now Golden and Paper, 
and all miracles have been out-miracled : for there 
are Rothschilds and English National Debts ; and 
whoso has sixpence is sovereign (to the length of 
sixpence) over all men ; commands cooks to feed 
him, philosophers to teach him, kings to mount 
guard over him, — to the length of sixpence. — 
Clothes too, which began in foolishest love of Orna- 
ment, what have they not become ! Increased Secur- 
ity and pleasurable Heat soon followed : but what of 
these? Shame, divine Shame (Scham, Modesty), 
as yet a stranger to the Anthropophagous bosom, 
arose there mysteriously under Clothes ; a mystic 
grove-encircled shrine for the Holy in man. Clothes 
gave us individuality, distinctions, social polity ; 
Clothes have made Men of us ; they are threatening 
to make Clothes-screens of us. 

" But, on the whole, 11 continues our eloquent Pro- 
fessor, ' ' Man is a Tool-using Animal {Handthierendes 
Thier). Weak in himself, and of small stature, he 
stands on a basis, at most for the flattest-soled, of 
some half-square foot, insecurely enough ; has to 
straddle out his legs, lest the very wind supplant him. 
Feeblest of bipeds ! Three quintals are a crushing 
load for him ; the steer of the meadow tosses him 
aloft, like a waste ra^. Nevertheless he can use 
Tools, can devise Tools : with these the granite 
mountain melts into light dust before him ; he kneads 
glowing iron, as if it were soft paste ; seas are his 



chap. v. THE WORLD IN CLOTHES. 45 

smooth highway, winds and fire his unwearying 
steeds. Nowhere do you find him without Tools ; 
without Tools he is nothing, with Tools he is all." 

Here may we not, for a moment, interrupt the 
stream of Oratory with a remark, that this Definition 
of the Tool-using Animal appears to us, of all that 
Animal-sort, considerably the precisest and best? 
Man is called a Laughing Animal : but do not the 
apes also laugh, or attempt to do it ; and is the man- 
liest man the greatest and oftenest laugher ? Teufels- 
drockh himself, as we said, laughed only once. Still 
less do we make of that other French Definition of the 
Cooking Animal ; which, indeed, for rigorous scien- 
tific purposes, is as good as useless. Can a Tartar be 
said to cook, when he only readies his steak by riding 
on it? Again, what Cookery does the Greenlander 
use, beyond stowing-up his whale-blubber, as a mar- 
mot, in the like case, might do ? Or how would 
Monsieur Ude prosper among those Orinocco Indians 
who, according to Humboldt, lodge in crow-nests, on 
the branches of trees ; and,' for half the year, have 
no victuals but pipe-clay, the whole country being 
under water ? But, on the other hand, show us the 
human being, of any period or climate, without his 
Tools : those very Caledonians, as we saw, had their 
Flint-ball, and Thong to it, such as no brute has or 
can have. 

" Man is a Tool-using Animal," concludes Teufels- 
drockh in his abrupt way; " of which truth Clothes 
are but one example : and surely if we consider the 
interval between the first wooden Dibble fashioned by 
man, and those Liverpool Steam-carriages, or the 



46 SARTOR RESARTUS. book i. 

British House of Commons, we shall note what prog- 
ress he has made. He digs up certain black stones 
from the bosom of the earth, and says to them, 
Transport me and this luggage at the rate of five-and- 
thirty miles an hour ; and they doit: he collects, 
apparently by lot, six-hundred and fifty-eight miscel- 
laneous individuals, and says to them, Make this 
nation toil for us, bleed for us, hunger and sorrow and 
sin for us; and they do it." 



CHAPTER VI. 

APRONS. 

One of the most unsatisfactory Sections in the 
whole Volume is that on Aprons. What though 
stout old Gao, the Persian Blacksmith, " whose 
Apron, now indeed hidden under jewels, because 
raised in revolt which proved successful, is still the 
royal standard of that country ; " what though John 
Knox 1 s Daughter, "who threatened Sovereign Majesty 
that she would catch her husband^ head in her 
Apron, rather than he should lie and be a bishop ;" 
what though the Landgravine Elizabeth, with many 
other Apron worthies, — figure here? An idle wire- 
drawing spirit, sometimes even a tone of levity, ap- 
proaching to conventional satire, is too clearly dis- 
cernible. What, for example, are we to make of 
such sentences as the following? 

" Aprons are Defences; against injury to cleanli- 
ness, to safety, to modesty, sometimes to roguery. 



chap. VI. APRONS. 47 

From the thin slip of notched silk (as it were, the em- 
blem and beatified ghost of an Apron), which some 
highest-bred housewife, sitting at Niirnberg Work- 
boxes and Toyboxes, has gracefully fastened on ; to 
the thick-tanned hide, girt round him with thongs, 
wherein the Builder builds, and at evening sticks his 
trowel ; or to those jingling sheet-iron Aprons, 
wherein your otherwise half-naked Vulcans hammer 
and smelt in their smelt-furnace, — is there not range 
enough in the fashion and uses of this Vestment? How 
much has been concealed, how much has been de- 
fended in Aprons ! Nay, rightfully considered, what is 
your whole Military and Police Establishment, charged 
at uncalculated millions, but a huge scarlet-colored, 
iron-fastened Apron, wherein Society works (uneas- 
ily enough) ; guarding itself from some soil and 
stithy-sparks, in this DeviFs-smithy (Teiifelssclwiiede) 
of a world ? But of all Aprons the most puzzling to 
me hitherto has been the Episcopal or Cassock. 
Wherein consists the usefulness of this Apron ? The 
Overseer {Eftiscopus) of Souls, I notice, has tucked- 
in the corner of it, as if his day's work were done : 
what does he shadow forth thereby?" etc. etc. 

Or again, has it often been the lot of our readers 
to read such stuff as we shall now quote ? 

" I consider those printed Paper Aprons, worn by 
the Parisian Cooks, as a new vent, though a slight 
one, for Typography ; therefore as an encouragement 
to modern Literature, and deserving of approval : 
nor is it without satisfaction that I hear of a cele- 
brated London Firm having in view to introduce the 
same fashion, with important extensions, in Eng- 



48 SARTOR RESARTUS. book I. 

land." — We who are on the spot hear of no such 
thing ; and indeed have reason to he thankful that 
hitherto there are other vents for our Literature, 
exuberant as it is.— Teufelsdrockh continues: "If 
such supply of printed Paper should rise so far as to 
choke-up the highways and public thoroughfares, new 
means must of necessity be had recourse to. In a 
world existing by Industry, we grudge to employ fire 
as a destroying element, and not as a creating one. 
However, Heaven is omnipotent, and will find us an 
outlet. In the mean while, is it not beautiful to see 
five-million quintals of Rags picked annually from the 
Laystall ; and annually, after being macerated, hot- 
pressed, printed-on, and sold, — returned thither ; 
filling so many hungry mouths by the way? Thus is 
the Laystall, especially with its Rags or Clothes-rub- 
bish, the grand Electric Battery, and Fountain-of- 
motion, from which and to which the Social 'Activities 
(like vitreous and resinous Electricities) circulate, in 
larger or smaller circles, through the mighty, billowy, 
storm-tost Chaos of Life, which they keep alive I'' 1 — 
Such passages fill us, who love the man, and partly 
esteem him, with a very mixed feeling. 

Farther down we meet with this : " The Journalists 
are now the true Kings and Clergy : henceforth 
Historians, unless they are fools, must write not of 
Bourbon Dynasties, and Tudors and Hapsburgs ; but 
of Stamped Broad-sheet Dynasties, and quite new 
successive Names, according as this or the other 
Able Editor, or Combination of Able Editors, gains 
the world's ear. Of the British Newspaper Press, 
perhaps the most important of all, and wonderful 



chap. vii. MISCELLANEOUS-HISTORICAL. 49 

enough in its secret constitution and procedure, a 
valuable descriptive History already exists, in that 
language, under the title of Satan" 1 s Invisible World 
Displayed ; which, however, by search in all the 
Weissnichtwo Libraries, I have not yet succeeded in 
procuring (yermochte nicht aufzutreiberi) ." 

Thus does the good Homer not only nod, but 
snore. Thus does Teufelsdrockh, wandering in 
regions where he had little business, confound the 
old authentic Presbyterian Witchfinder with a new, 
spurious, imaginary Historian of the Britische Jour- 
nalistik ; and so stumble on perhaps the most egre- 
gious blunder in Modern Literature ! 



CHAPTER VII. 

MISCELLANEOUS-HISTORICAL. 

Happier is our Professor, and more purely scientific 
and historic, when he reaches the Middle Ages in 
Europe, and down to the end of the Seventeenth 
Century; the true era of extravagance in Costume. 
It is here that the Antiquary and Student of Modes 
comes upon his richest harvest. Fantastic garbs, 
beggaring all fancy of a Teniers or a Callot, succeed 
each other, like monster devouring monster in a 
Dream. The whole too in brief authentic strokes, 
and touched not seldom with that breath of genius 
which makes even old raiment live. Indeed, so 
learned, precise, graphical, and everyway interesting 
have we found these Chapters, that it may be thrown- 



50 SARTOR RESARTUS. book i. 

out as a pertinent question for parties concerned, 
Whether or not a good English Translation thereof 
might henceforth be profitably incorporated with Mr. 
Merrick's valuable Work On Ancient Armor ? Take, 
by way of example, the following sketch ; as author- 
ity for which Paulinus's Zeitkiirzende Lust (ii. 678) 
is, with seeming confidence, referred to : 

" Did we behold the German fashionable dress of 
the Fifteenth Century, we might smile ; as perhaps 
those bygone Germans, were they to rise again, and 
see our haberdashery, would cross themselves, and 
invoke the Virgin. But happily no bygone German, 
or man, rises again ; thus the Present is not need- 
lessly trammelled with the Past ; and only grows out 
of it, like a Tree, whose roots are not intertangled 
with its branches, but lie peaceably underground. 
Nay it is very mournful, yet not useless, to see and 
know, how the Greatest and Dearest, in a short 
while, would find his place quite filled-up here, and 
no room for him ; the very Napoleon, the very 
Byron, in some seven years, has become obsolete, 
and were now a foreigner to his Europe. Thus is 
the Law of Progress secured ; and in Clothes, as in 
all other external things whatsoever, no fashion will 
continue. 

" Of the military classes in those old times, whose 
buff-belts, complicated chains and gorgets, huge 
churn-boots, and other riding and fighting gear have 
been bepainted in modern Romance, till the whole 
has acquired somewhat of a sign-post character, — I 
shall here say nothing : the civil and pacific classes, 
less touched upon, are wonderful enough for us. 



chap. vir. MISCELLANEOUS-HISTORICAL. 51 

"Rich men, I find, have Teusinke'* (a perhaps 
untranslatable article) ; " also a silver girdle, whereat 
hang little bells ; so that when a man walks, it is 
with continual jingling. Some few, of musical turn, 
have a whole chime of bells {Glockenspiel) fastened 
there ; which, especially in sudden whirls, and the 
other accidents of walking, has a grateful effect. 
Observe too how fond they are of peaks, and Gothic- 
arch intersections. The male world wears peaked 
caps, an ell long, which hang bobbing over the side 
(schief) : their shoes are peaked in front, also to the 
length of an ell, and laced on the side with tags ; 
even the wooden shoes have their ell-long noses : 
some also clap bells on the peak. Further, according 
to my authority, the men have breeches without seat 
(ohne Ges'dss) : these they fasten peakwise to their 
shirts ; and the long round doublet must overlap 
them. 

"Rich maidens, again, flit abroad in gowns ^col- 
loped out behind and before, so that back and breast 
are almost bare. Wives of quality, on the other hand, 
have train-gowns four or five ells in length ; which 
trains there are boys to carry. Brave Cleopatras, 
sailing in their silk-cloth Galley, with a Cupid for 
steersman ! Consider their welts, a handbreath thick, 
which waver round them by way of hem ; the long 
flood of silver buttons, or rather silver shells, from 
throat to shoe, wherewith these stime welt-gowns are 
buttoned. The maidens have bound silver snoods 
about their hair, with gold spangles, and pendent 
flames {Flammeri) , that is, sparkling hair-drops : but 
of their mothers headgear who shall speak? Neither 



52 SARTOR RESARTUS. book i. 

in love of grace is comfort forgotten. In winter 
weather you behold the whole fair creation (that can 
afford it) in long mantles, with skirts wide below, 
and, for hem, not one but two sufficient handbroad 
welts ; all ending atop in a thick well-starched Ruff, 
some twenty inches broad : these are their Ruff- 
mantles {Kragemnantel}. 

" As yet among the womankind hoop-petticoats are 
not ; but the men have doublets of fustian, under 
which lie multiple ruffs of cloth, pasted together with 
batter (mit Teig zusammeugekleistert ) , which create 
protuberance enough. Thus do the two sexes vie 
with each other in the art of Decoration ; and as 
usual the stronger carries it. 11 

Our Professor, whether he have humor himself or 
not, manifests a certain feeling of the Ludicrous, a 
sly observance of it, which, could emotion of any 
kind be confidently predicated of so still a man, we 
might call a real love. None of those bell-girdles, 
bushel-breeches, cornuted shoes, or other the like 
phenomena, of which the History of Dress offers so 
many, escape him : more especially the mischances, 
or striking adventures, incident to the wearers of 
such, are noticed with due fidelity. Sir Walter 
Raleigh's fine mantle, which he spread in the mud 
under Queen Elizabeth^ feet, appears to provoke 
little enthusiasm in him ; he merely asks, Whether at 
that period the Maiden Queen "was red-painted on 
the nose, and white-painted on the cheeks, as her 
tirewomen, when from spleen and wrinkles she would 
no longer look in any glass, were wont to serve her? " 
We can answer that Sir Walter knew well what he 



chap. vii. MISCELLANEOUS-HISTORICAL. 53 

was doing, and had the Maiden Queen been stuffed 
parchment dyed in verdigris, would have done the 
same. 

Thus too, treating of those enormous habiliments, 
that were not only slashed and galooned, but artifi- 
cially swollen-out on the broader parts of the body, 
by introduction of Bran, — our Professor fails not to 
comment on that luckless Courtier, who having seated 
himself on a chair with some projecting nail on it, 
and therefrom rising, to pay his devoir on the entrance 
of Majesty, instantaneously emitted several pecks of 
dry wheat-dust : and stood there diminished to a 
spindle, his galoons and slashes dangling sorrowful 
and flabby round him. Whereupon the Professor 
publishes this reflection : 

" By what strange chances do we live in History? 
Erostratus by a torch ; Milo by a bullock ; Henry 
Darnley, an unfledged booby and bustard, by his 
limbs ; most Kings and Queens by being born under 
such and such a bed-tester ; Boileau Despreaux 
(according to Helvetius) by the peck of a turkey ; and 
this ill-starred individual by a rent in his breeches, 
— for no Memoirist of Kaiser Otto's Court omits 
him. Vain was the prayer of Themistocles for a 
talent of Forgetting : my Friends, yield cheerfully to 
Destiny, and read since it is written. 1 ' — Has Teufels- 
drockh to be put in mind that, nearly related to the 
impossible talent of Forgetting, stands that talent of 
Silence, which even travelling Englishmen manifest? 

"The simplest costume," observes our Professor, 
"which I anywhere find alluded to in History, is 
that used as regimental, by Bolivar's Cavalry, in the 



54 SARTOR RESARTUS. book i. 

late Columbian wars. A square Blanket, twelve feet 
in diagonal, is provided (some were wont to cut-off 
the corners, and make it circular) : in the centre a 
slit is effected eighteen inches long ; through this the 
mother-naked Trooper introduces his head and neck ; 
and so rides shielded from all weather, and in battle 
from many strokes (for he rolls it about his left arm) ; 
and not only dressed, but harnessed and draperied." 
With which picture of a State of Nature, affecting 
by its singularity, and Old-Roman contempt of the 
superfluous, we shall quit this part of our subject. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE WORLD OUT OF CLOTHES. 

If in the Descriptive-Historical portion of this 
Volume, Teufelsdrockh, discussing merely the Wer- 
den (Origin and successive Improvement) of Clothes, 
has astonished many a reader, much more will he in 
the Speculative-Philosophical portion, which treats of 
their Wirken, or Influences. It is here that the 
present Editor first feels the pressure of his task ; for 
here properly the higher and new Philosophy of 
Clothes commences : an untried, almost inconceiv- 
able region, or chaos ; in venturing upon which, how 
difficult, yet how unspeakably important, is it to know 
what course, of survey and conquest, is the true one ; 
where the footing is firm substance and will bear us, 
where it is hollow, or mere cloud, and may ingulf us ! 
Teufelsdrockh undertakes no less than to expound 



chap. viii. THE WORLD OUT OF CLOTHES. 55 

the moral, political, even religious Influences of 
Clothes ; he undertakes to make manifest, in its thou- 
sandfold bearings, this grand Proposition, that Man's 
earthly interests " are all hooked and buttoned 
together, and held up, by Clothes. 1 ' He says in so 
many words, " Society is founded upon Cloth ; " and 
again, " Society sails through the Infinitude on Cloth, 
as on a Faust's Mantle, or rather like the Sheet of 
clean and unclean beasts in the Apostle's Dream ; 
and without such Sheet or Mantle, would sink to 
endless depths, or mount to inane limboes, and in 
either case be no more." 

By what chains, or indeed infinitely complected 
tissues, of Meditation this grand Theorem is here 
unfolded, and innumerable practical Corollaries are 
drawn therefrom, it were perhaps a mad ambition to 
attempt exhibiting. Our Professor's method is not, 
in any case, that of common school Logic, where the 
truths all stand in a row, each holding by the skirts 
of the other ; but at best that of practical Reason, 
proceeding by large Intuition over whole systematic 
groups and kingdoms ; whereby, we might say. a 
noble complexity, almost like that of Nature, reigns 
in his Philosophy, or spiritual Picture of Nature : a 
mighty maze, yet, as faith whispers, not without a 
plan. Nay we complained above, that a certain 
ignoble complexity, what we must call mere confusion, 
was also discernible. Often, also, we have to exclaim : 
Would to Heaven those same Biographical Docu- 
ments were come ! For it seems as if the demonstra- 
tion lay much in the Author's individuality ; as if it 
were not Argument that had taught him, but Expe- 



56 SARTOR RESARTUS. book i. 

rience. At present it is only in local glimpses, and 
by significant fragments, picked often at wide-enough 
intervals from the original Volume, and carefully 
collated, that we can hope to impart some outline or 
foreshadow of this Doctrine. Readers of any intelli- 
gence are once more invited to favor us with their 
most concentrated attention : let these, after intense 
consideration, and not till then, pronounce, Whether 
on the utmost verge of our actual horizon there is not 
a looming as of Land ; a promise of new Fortunate 
Islands, perhaps whole undiscovered Americas, for 
such as have canvas to sail thither? — As exordium 
to the whole, stand here the following long citation : 

"With men of a speculative turn," writes Teu- 
felsdrockh, "there come seasons, meditative, sweet, 
yet awful hours, when in wonder and fear you ask 
yourself that unanswerable question : Who am /; 
the thing that can say " I " (das Wesen das sich Ich 
nennf) ? The world, with its loud trafficking, retires 
into the distance ; and, through the paper-hangings, 
and stone-walls, and thick-plied tissues of Commerce 
and Polity, and all the living and lifeless integuments 
(of Society and a Body), wherewith your Existence 
sits surrounded, — the sight reaches forth into the 
void Deep, and you are alone with the Universe, and 
silently commune with it, as one mysterious Presence 
with another. 

" Who am I ; what is this Me? A Voice, a Motion, 
an Appearance ; — some embodied, visualized Idea 
in the Eternal Mind? Cogito, ergo sum. Alas, poor 
Cogitator, this takes us but a little way. Sure 
enough, I am; and lately was not: but Whence? 



chap. viii. 7 HE WORLD OUT OF CLOTHES. 57 

How? Whereto? The answer lies around, written 
in all colors and motions, uttered in all tones of 
jubilee and wail, in thousand-figured, thousand-voiced, 
harmonious Nature : but where is the cunning eye 
and ear to whom that God-written Apocalypse will 
yield articulate meaning? We sit as in a boundless 
Phantasmagoria and Dream-grotto ; boundless, for 
the faintest star, the remotest century, lies not 
even nearer the verge thereof: sounds and many- 
colored visions flit round our sense ; but Him, the 
Unslumbering, whose work both Dream and Dreamer 
are, we see not ; except in rare half-waking moments, 
suspect not. Creation, says one, lies before us, like 
a glorious Rainbow ; but the Sun that made it lies 
behind us, hidden from us. Then, in that strange 
Dream, how we clutch at shadows as if they were 
substances ; and sleep deepest while fancying our- 
selves most awake ! Which of your Philosophical 
Systems is other than a dream-theorem ; a net quo- 
tient, confidently given out, where divisor and divi- 
dend are both unknown ? What are all your national 
Wars, with their Moscow Retreats, and sanguinary 
hate-filled Revolutions, but the Somnambulism of 
uneasy Sleepers? This Dreaming, this Somnam- 
bulism is what we on Earth call Life ; wherein the 
most indeed undoubtingly wander, as if they knew 
right hand from left ; yet they only are wise who 
know that they know nothing. 

" Pity that all Metaphysics had hitherto proved so 
inexpressibly unproductive ! The secret of Man's 
Being is still like the Sphinx's secret : a riddle that 
he cannot rede ; and for ignorance of which he suffers 



58 SARTOR RESARTUS. book i. 

death, the worst death, a spiritual. What are your 
Axioms, and Categories, and Systems, and Aphor- 
isms? Words, words. High Air-castles are cun- 
ningly built of Words, the Words well bedded also 
in good Logic-mortar ; wherein, however, no Knowl- 
edge will come to lodge. The whole is greater than 
the part : how exceedingly true ! Nature abhors a 
vacuum : how exceedingly false and calumnious ! 
Again, A r othi?ig can act but where it is : with all my 
heart ; only, where is it ? Be not the slave of 
Words : is not the Distant, the Dead, while I love 
it, and long for it, and mourn for it, Here, in the 
genuine sense, as truly as the floor I stand on? 
But that same Where, with its brother When, are 
from the first the master-colors of our Dream- 
grotto ; say rather, the Canvas (the warp and woof 
thereof) whereon all our Dreams and Life-visions 
are painted. Nevertheless, has not a deeper med- 
itation taught certain of every climate and age, that 
the Where and When, so mysteriously inseparable 
from all our thoughts, are but superficial terrestrial 
adhesions to thought ; that the Seer may discern 
them where they mount up out of the celestial 
Everywhere and Forever : have not all nations 
conceived their God as Omnipresent and Eternal ; as 
existing in a universal Here, an everlasting Now? 
Think well, thou too wilt find that Space is but a 
mode of our human Sense, so likewise Time ; there 
is no Space and no Time: We are — we know not 
what ; — light-sparkles floating in the aether of Deity ! 
" So that this so solid-seeming World, after all, 
were but an air-image, our Me the only reality : and 



chap. vni. THE WORLD OUT OF CLOTHES. 59 

Nature, with its thousandfold production and destruc- 
tion, but the reflex of our own inward Force, the 
" phantasy of our Dream ; " or what the Earth-Spirit 

in Faust names it, the living visible Garment of God: 
1 
" ' In Being's floods, in Action's storm, 
I walk and work, above, beneath, 
Work and weave in endless motion'. 
Birth and Death, 
An infinite ocean ; 
A seizing and giving 
The fire of Living : 
'Tis thus at the roaring Loom of Time I ply, 
And weave for God the Garment thou seest Him by.' 

Of twenty millions that have read and spouted this 
thunder-speech of the Erdgeist, are there yet twenty 
units of us that have learned the meaning thereof ? 

" It was in some such mood, when wearied and for- 
done with these high speculations, that I first came 
upon the question of Clothes. Strange enough, it 
strikes me, is this same fact of there being Tailors 
and Tailored. The Horse I ride has his own whole 
fell : strip him of the girths and flaps and extraneous 
tags I have fastened round him, and the noble 
creature is his own sempster and weaver and spinner ; 
nay his own boot-maker, jeweller, and man-milliner ; 
he bounds free through the valleys, with a perennial 
rainproof court-suit on his body ; wherein warmth 
and easiness of fit have reached perfection ; nay, the 
graces also have been considered, and frills and 
fringes, with gay variety of color, featly appended, 
and ever in the right place, are not wanting. While 
I — good Heaven ! — have thatched myself over with 



60 SARTOR RESARTUS. book i. 

the dead fleeces of sheep, the bark of vegetables, 
the entrails of worms, the hides of oxen or seals, the 
felt of furred beasts ; and walk abroad a moving Rag- 
screen, overheaped with shreds and tatters raked 
from the Charnel-house of Nature, where they would 
have rotted, to rot on me more slowly ! Day after 
day, I must thatch myself anew ; day after day, this 
despicable thatch must lose some film of its thick- 
ness ; some film of it, frayed away by tear and wear, 
must be brushed-off into the Ashpit, into the Lay- 
stall ; till by degrees the whole has been brushed 
thither, and I, the dust-making, patent Rag-grinder, 
get new material to grind down. O subter-brutish ! 
vile ! most vile ! For have not I too a compact all- 
enclosing Skin, whiter or dingier? Am I a botched 
mass of tailors 1 and cobblers 1 shreds, then ; or a 
tightly-articulated homogeneous little Figure, auto- 
matic, nay alive ? 

" Strange enough how creatures of the human-kind 
shut their eyes to plainest facts ; and by the mere 
inertia of Oblivion and Stupidity, live at ease in the 
midst of Wonder and Terrors. But indeed man is, 
and was always, a blockhead and dullard ; much 
readier to feel and digest, than to think and consider. 
Prejudice, which he pretends to hate, is his absolute 
lawgiver ; mere use-and-wont everywhere leads him 
by the nose ; thus let but a Rising of the Sun, let but 
a Creation of the World happen twice and it ceases 
to be marvellous to be noteworthy, or noticeable. 
Perhaps not once in a lifetime does it occur to your 
ordinary biped, of any country or generation, be he 
gold-mantled Prince or russet-jerkined Peasant, that 



chap. ix. ADAMITISM. 61 

his Vestments and his Self are not one and indi- 
visible ; that he is naked, without vestments, till he 
buy or steal such, and by forethought sew and button 
them. 

"For my own part, these considerations, of our 
Clothes-thatch, and how, reaching inwards even to 
our heart of hearts, it tailorizes and demoralizes us, 
fill me with a certain horror at myself and mankind ; 
almost as one feels at those Dutch Cows, which, 
during the wet season, you see grazing deliberately 
with jackets and petticoats (of striped sacking), in 
the meadows of Gouda. Nevertheless there is some- 
thing great in the moment when a man first strips 
himself of adventitious wrappages ; and sees indeed 
that he is naked, and, as Swift has it, ' a forked 
straddling animal with bandy legs ; ' yet also a Spirit, 
and unutterable Mystery of Mysteries. 1 ' 



CHAPTER IX. 

ADAMITISM. 

Let no courteous reader take offence at the opin- 
ions broached in the conclusion of the last Chapter. 
The Editor himself, on first glancing over that sin- 
gular passage, was inclined to exclaim : What, have 
we got not only a Sansculottist, but an enemy to 
Clothes in the abstract? A new Adamite, in this 
century, which flatters itself that it is the Nineteenth, 
and destructive both to Superstition and Enthusiasm? 

Consider, thou foolish Teufelsdrockh, what bene- 



62 SARTOR RESARTUS. book i. 

fits unspeakable all ages and sexes derive from 
Clothes. For example, when thou thyself, a watery, 
pulpy, slobbery freshman and new-comer in this 
Planet, sattest muling and puking in thy nurse's 
arms ; sucking thy coral, and looking forth into the 
world in the blankest manner, what hadst thou been 
without thy blankets, and bibs, and other nameless 
hulls ? A terror to thyself and mankind ! Or hast 
thou forgotten the day when thou first receivedst 
breeches, and thy long clothes became short? The 
village where thou livedst was all apprised of the 
fact ; and neighbor after neighbor kissed thy pudding- 
cheek, and gave thee, as handsel, silver or copper 
coins, on that the first gala-day of thy existence. 
Again, wert not thou, at one period of life, a Buck, 
or Blood, or Macaroni, or Incroyable, or Dandy, or 
by whatever name, according to year and place, such 
phenomenon is distinguished? In that one word lie 
included mysterious volumes. Nay, now when the 
reign of folly is over, or altered, and thy clothes are 
not for triumph but for defence, hast thou always 
worn them perforce, and as a consequence of Man's 
Fall ; never rejoiced in them as in a warm movable 
House, a Body round thy Body, wherein that strange 
Thee of thine sat snug, defying all variations of 
Climate ? Girt with thick double-milled kerseys ; 
half-buried under shawls and broadbrims, and over- 
alls and mud-boots, thy very fingers cased in doeskin 
and mittens, thou hast bestrode that " Horse I ride ; " 
and, though it were in wild winter, dashed through 
the world, glorying in it as if thou wert its lord. In 
vain did the sleet beat round thy temples ; it lighted 



chap. ix. ADAM1TJSM. 63 

only on thy impenetrable, felted or woven, case of 
wool. In vain did the winds howl, — forests sound- 
ing and creaking, deep calling unto deep, — and the 
storms heap themselves together into one huge Arctic 
whirlpool : thou flewest through the middle thereof, 
striking fire from the highway ; wild music hummed 
in thy ears, thou too wert as a " sailor of the air; " 
the wreck of matter and the crash of worlds was thy 
element and propitiously wafting tide. Without 
Clothes, without bit or saddle, what hadst thou been ; 
what had thy fleet quadruped been? — Nature is 
good, but she is not the best : here truly was the 
victory of Art over Nature. A thunderbolt indeed 
might have pierced thee ; all short of this thou 
couldst defy. 

Or, cries the courteous reader, has your Teufels- 
drockh forgotten what he said lately about " Aborigi- 
nal Savages," and their " condition miserable indeed? 1 ' 
Would he have all this unsaid ; and us betake our- 
selves again to the "matted cloak," and go sheeted 
in a " thick natural fell? " 

Nowise, courteous reader! The Professor knows 
full well what he is saying ; and both thou and we, 
in our haste, do him wrong. If Clothes, in these 
times, " so tailorize and demoralize us," have they no 
redeeming value ; can they not be altered to serve 
better ; must they of necessity be thrown to the dogs ? 
The truth is, Teufelsdrockh, though a Sansculottist, 
is no Adamite ; and much perhaps as he might wish 
to go forth before this degenerate age "as a Sign," 
would nowise wish to do it, as those old Adamites 
did, in a state of Nakedness. The utility of Clothes 



64 SARTOR RESARTUS. book l 

is altogether apparent to him : nay, perhaps he has 
an insight into their more recondite, and almost 
mystic qualities, what we might call the omnipotent 
virtue of Clothes, such as was never before vouch- 
safed to any man. For example : 

" You see two individuals," he writes, " one dressed 
in fine Red, the other in coarse threadbare Blue : 
Red says to Blue, ' Be hanged and anatomized ; ' 
Blue hears with a shudder, and (O wonder of won- 
ders !) marches sorrowfully to the gallows ; is there 
noosed-up, vibrates his hour, and the surgeons dis- 
sect him, and fit his bones into a skeleton for med- 
ical purposes. How is this ; or what make ye of 
your Nothing can act but where it is f Red has no 
physical hold of Blue, no clutch of him, is nowise in 
contact with him : neither are those ministering 
Sheriffs and Lord-Lieutenants and Hangmen and 
Tipstaves so related to commanding Red, that he 
can tug them hither and thither ; but each stands 
distinct within his own skin. Nevertheless, as it is 
spoken, so is it done : the articulated Word sets all 
hands in Action ; and Rope and Improved-drop per- 
form their work. 

" Thinking reader, the reason seems to me twofold : 
First, that Man is a Spirit, and bound by invisible 
bonds to All Men; secondly, that he wears Clothes, 
which are the visible emblems of that fact. Has not 
your Red hanging-individual a horsehair wig, squir- 
rel-skins, and a plush-gown ; whereby all mortals 
know that he is a Judge? — Society, which the 
more 1 think of it astonishes me the more, is founded 
upon Cloth. 



chap ix. ADAMITISM. 65 

" Often in my atrabiliar moods, when I read of 
pompous ceremonials, Frankfort Coronations, Royal 
Drawing-rooms, Levees, Couchees ; and how the 
ushers and macers and pursuivants, are all in waiting ; 
how Duke this is presented by Archduke that, and 
Colonel A by General B, and innumerable Bishops, 
Admirals, and miscellaneous Functionaries, are 
advancing gallantly to the Anointed Presence ; and I 
strive, in my remote privacy, to form a clear picture 
of that solemnity, — on a sudden, as by some en- 
chanter's wand, the — shall I speak it? — the Clothes 
fly-off the whole dramatic corps ; and Dukes, Gran- 
dees, Bishops, Generals, Anointed Presence itself, 
every mother's son of them, stand straddling there, 
not a shirt on them ; and I know not whether to laugh 
or weep. This physical or psychical infirmity, in 
which perhaps I am not singular, I have, after hesi- 
tation, thought right to publish, for the solace of 
those afflicted with the like." 

Would to Heaven, say we, thou hadst thought 
right to keep it secret ! Who is there now that can 
read the five columns of Presentations in his Morn- 
ing Newspaper without a shudder? Hypochondriac 
men, and all men are to a certain extent hypochon- 
driac, should be more gently treated. With what 
readiness our fancy, in this shattered state of the 
nerves, follows out the consequences which Teufels- 
drockh, with a devilish coolness, goes on to draw : 

"What would Majesty do, could such an accident 
befall in reality ; should the buttons all simultaneously 
start, and the solid wool evaporate, in very Deed, as 
herein Dream? Ach Gott ! How each skulks into 



66 SARTOR RESARTUS. book I. 

the nearest hiding-place ; their high State Tragedy 
{Hauftt-imd Staats- Action) becomes a Pickleherring- 
Farce to weep at, which is the worst kind of Farce ; 
the tables (according to Horace), and with them, the 
whole fabric of Government, Legislation, Property, 
Police, and Civilized Society, are dissolved, in wails 
and howls." 

Lives the man that can figure a naked Duke 
of Windlestraw addressing a naked House of 
Lords? Imagination, choked as in mephitic air, 
recoils on itself, and will not forward with the picture. 
The Woolsack, the Ministerial, the Opposition 
Benches — infandum ! infandum ! And yet why is 
the thing impossible ? Was not every soul, or rather 
every body, of these Guardians of our Liberties, 
naked, or nearly so, last night; "a forked Radish 
with a head fantastically carved 1 '? And why might 
he not, did our stern fate so order it, walk out to 
St. Stephen's, as well as into bed, in that no-fashion ; 
and there, with other similar Radishes, hold a Bed of 
Justice? " Solace of those afflicted with the like ! " 
Unhappy Teufelsdrockh, had man ever such a "phys- 
ical or psychical infirmity " before ? And now how 
many, perhaps, may thy unparalleled confession 
(which we, even to the sounder British world, and 
goaded-on by Critical and Biographical duty, grudge 
to reimpart) incurably infect therewith ! Art thou 
the malignest of Sansculottists, or only the maddest? 

"It will remain to be examined," adds the inexorable 
Teufelsdrockh, " ;n how far the Scarecrow, as a 
Clothed Person, is not also entitled to benefit of 
clergy, and English trial by jury : nay perhaps, con- 



chap. x. PURE REASON. 67 

sidering his high function (for is not he too a Defen- 
der of Property, and Sovereign armed with the 
terrors of the Law?), to a certain royal Immunity and 
Inviolability ; which, however, misers and the meaner 
class of persons are not always voluntarily disposed 
to grant him." . . . . "O my Friends, we are (in 
Yorick Sterne's words) but as ' turkeys driven, with 
a stick and red clout, to the market : ' or if some 
drivers, as they do in Norfolk, take a dried bladder 
and put peas in it, the rattle thereof terrifies the 
boldest ! " 



CHAPTER X. 

PURE REASON. 

IT must now be apparent enough that our Pro- 
fessor, as above hinted, is a speculative Radical, and 
of the very darkest tinge ; acknowledging, for most 
part, in the solemnities and paraphernalia of civil- 
ized Life, which we make so much of, nothing but so 
many Cloth-rags, turkey-poles, and "bladders with 
dried peas." To linger among such speculations, 
longer than mere Science requires, a discerning 
public can have no wish. For our purposes the 
simple fact that such a Naked World is possible, nay 
actually exists (under the Clothed one), will be 
sufficient. Much, therefore, we omit about " Kings 
wrestling naked on the green with Carmen," and the 
Kings being thrown: "dissect them with scalpels," 
says Teufelsdrockh ; " the same viscera, tissues, livers, 
lights, and other life-tackle, are there : examine their 



68 SARTOR RESARTUS. book r. 

spiritual mechanism ; the same great Need, great 
Greed, and little Faculty ; nay ten to one but the 
Carman, who understands draught-cattle, the rimming 
of wheels, something of the laws of unstable and 
stable equilibrium, with other branches of wagon- 
science, and has actually put forth his hand and 
operated on Nature, is the more cunningly gifted of 
the two. Whence, then, their so unspeakable differ- 
ence? From Clothes." Much also we shall omit 
about confusion of Ranks, and Joan and My Lady, 
and how it would be everywhere " Hail fellow well 
met," and Chaos were come again : all which to any 
one that has once fairly pictured-out the grand mother- 
idea, Society in a state of Nakedness , will spontane- 
ously suggest itself. Should some sceptical individ- 
ual still entertain doubts whether in a world without 
Clothes, the smallest Politeness, Polity, or even 
Police, could exist, let him turn to the original 
Volume, and view there the boundless Serbonian 
Bog of Sansculottism, stretching sour and pesti- 
lential : over which we have lightly flown ; where not 
only whole armies but whole nations might sink ! 
If indeed the following argument, in its brief rivet- 
ing emphasis, be not of itself incontrovertible and 
final : 

"Are we Opossums; have we natural Pouches, 
like the Kangaroo? Or how, without Clothes, could 
we possess the master-organ, souPs seat, and true 
pineal gland of the Body Social : I mean, a Purse ? " 

Nevertheless it is impossible to hate Professor 
Teufelsdrockh ; at worst, one knows not whether to 
hate or to love him. For though, in looking at the 



chap. X. PURE REASON. 69 

fair tapestry of human Life, with its royal and even 
sacred figures, he dwells not on the obverse alone, 
but here chiefly on the reverse ; and indeed turns out 
the rough seams, tatters, and manifold thrums of 
that unsightly wrong-side, with an almost diabolic 
patience and indifference, which must have sunk him 
in the estimation of most readers, — there is that 
within which unspeakably distinguishes him from all 
other past and present Sansculottists. The grand 
unparalleled peculiarity of Teufelsdrockh is, that 
with all this Descendentalism, he combines a Trans- 
cendentalism, no less superlative ; whereby if on the 
one hand he degrade man below most animals, except 
those jacketed Gouda Cows, he, on the other, exalts 
him beyond the visible Heavens, almost to an equality 
with the Gods. 

" To the eye of vulgar Logic," says he, " what is 
man? An omnivorous Biped that wears Breeches. 
To the eye of Pure Reason what is he? A Soul, a 
Spirit, and divine Apparition. Round his mysterious 
Me, there lies, under all those wool-rags, a Garment 
of Flesh (or of Senses), contextured in the Loom of 
Heaven ; whereby he is revealed to his like, and 
dwells with them in Union and Division ; and sees 
and fashions for himself a Universe, with azure Starry 
Spaces, and long Thousands of Years. Deep-hidden 
is he under that strange Garment ; amid Sounds and 
Colors and Forms, as it were, swathed-in, and in- 
extricably over-shrouded : yet it is sky-woven, and 
worthy of a God. Stands he not thereby in the 
centre of Immensities, in the conflux of Eternities? 
He feels ; power has been given him to know, to be- 



70 SARTOR RESARTUS. book i. 

lieve ; nay does not the spirit of Love, free in its ce- 
lestial primeval brightness, even here, though but for 
moments, look through? Well said Saint Chrysos- 
tom, with his lips of gold, ' the true Shekinah is 
Man : ' where else is the God 1 s-Presence manifested 
not to our eyes only, but to our hearts, as in our 
fellow-man? " 

In such passages, unhappily too rare, the high 
Platonic Mysticism of our Author, which is perhaps 
the fundamental element of his nature, bursts forth, 
as it were, in full flood : and, through all the vapor 
and tarnish of what is often so perverse, so mean in 
his exterior and environment, we seem to look into a 
whole inward Sea of Light and Love; — though, 
alas, the grim coppery clouds soon roll together 
again, and hide it from view. 

Such tendency to Mysticism is everywhere trace- 
able in this man ; and indeed, to attentive readers, 
must have been long ago apparent. Nothing that he 
sees but has more than a common meaning, but has 
two meanings : thus, if in the highest Imperial Sceptre 
and Charlemagne-Mantle, as well as in the poorest 
Ox-goad and Gipsy-Blanket, he finds Prose, Decay, 
Contemptibility ; there is in each sort Poetry also, 
and a reverend Worth. For Matter, were it never so 
despicable, is Spirit, the manifestation of Spirit : 
were it never so honorable, can it be more? The 
thing Visible, nay the thing Imagined, the thing in 
any way conceived as Visible, what is it but a Gar- 
ment, a Clothing of the higher, celestial Invisible, 
" unimaginable, formless, dark with excess of bright "? 
Under which point of view the following passage, so 



chap. x. PURE REASON. 71 

strange in purport, so strange in phrase, seems char- 
acteristic enough : 

" The beginning of all Wisdom is to look fixedly 
on Clothes, or even with armed eyesight, till they 
become transparent. ' The Philosopher, 1 says the 
wisest of this age, ' must station himself in the 
middle : ' how true ! The Philosopher is he to whom 
the Highest has descended, and the Lowest has 
mounted up ; who is the equal and kindly brother 
of all. 

" Shall we tremble before cloth webs and cobwebs, 
whether woven in Arkwright looms, or by the silent 
Arachnes that weave unrestingly in our imagination ? 
Or, on the other hand, what is there that we cannot 
love ; since all was created by God ? 

"Happy he who can look through the Clothes of 
a Man (the woollen, and fleshly, and official Bank- 
paper and State-paper Clothes) into the Man him- 
self; and discern, it may be, in this or the other 
Dread Potentate, a more or less incompetent Diges- 
tive-apparatus ; yet also an inscrutable venerable 
Mystery, in the meanest Tinker that sees with 
eyes ! " 

For the rest, as is natural to a man of this kind, 
he deals much in the feeling of Wonder ; insists on 
the necessity and high worth of universal Wonder ; 
which he holds to be the only reasonable temper for 
the denizen of so singular a Planet as ours. "Won- 
der," says he, "is the basis of Worship: the reign 
of wonder is perennial, indestructible in Man ; only 
at certain stages (as the present), it is, for some 
short season, a reign in partibus infidelium" That 



72 SARTOR RESARTUS. book i. 

progress of Science, which is to destroy Wonder, 
and in its stead substitute Mensuration and Numera-. 
tion, finds small favor with Teufelsdrockh, much as 
he otherwise venerates these two latter processes. 

"Shall your Science," exclaims he, "proceed in 
the small chink-lighted, or even oil-lighted, under- 
ground workshop of Logic alone ; and man's mind 
become an Arithmetical Mill, whereof Memory is the 
Hopper, and mere Tables of Sines and Tangents, 
Codification, and Treatises of what you call Political 
Economy, are the Meal ? And what is that Science, 
which the scientific head alone, were it screwed off, 
and (like the Doctor's in the Arabian Tale) set in a 
basin to keep it alive, could prosecute without shadow 
of a heart, — but one other of the mechanical and 
menial handicrafts, for which the Scientific Head 
(having a Soul in it) is too noble an organ? I mean 
that Thought without Reverence is barren, perhaps 
poisonous ; at best, dies like cookery with the day 
that called it forth ; does not live, like sowing, in 
successive tilths and wider-spreading harvests, bring- 
ing food and plenteous increase to all Time." 

In such wise does Teufelsdrockh deal hits, harder 
or softer, according to ability ; yet ever, as we would 
fain persuade ourselves, with charitable intent. Above 
all, that class of " Logic-choppers, and treble-pipe 
Scoffers, and professed Enemies to Wonder; who, in 
these days, so numerously patrol as night-constables 
about the Mechanics' Institute of Science, and cackle, 
like true Old-Roman geese and goslings round their 
Capitol, on any alarm, or on none ; nay who often, as 
illuminated Sceptics, walk abroad into peaceable 



chap. x. PURE REASON. 73 

society, in full daylight with rattle and lantern, and 
insist on guiding you and guarding you therewith, 
though the Sun is shining, and the street populous 
with mere justice-loving men : " that whole class is 
inexpressibly wearisome to him. Hear with what un- 
common animation he perorates : 

"The man who cannot wonder, who does not 
habitually wonder (and worship) , were he President 
of innumerable Royal Societies, and carried the whole 
Mecanique Celeste and Hegel's Philosophy , and the 
epitome of all Laboratories and Observatories with 
their results, in his single head, — is but a Pair of 
Spectacles behind which there is no Eye. Let those 
who have Eyes look through him, then he may be 
useful. 

' ' Thou wilt have no Mystery and Mysticism ; 
wilt walk through thy world by the sunshine of what 
thou callest Truth, or even by the hand-lamp of what 
I call Attorney-Logic ; and ' explain ' all, k account ' 
for all, or believe nothing of it? Nay, thou wilt 
attempt laughter; whoso recognizes the unfathom- 
able, all-pervading domain of Mystery, which is 
everywhere under our feet and among our hands ; to 
whom the Universe is an Oracle and Temple, as well 
as a Kitchen and Cattle-stall, — he shall be a deliri- 
ous Mystic ; to him thou, with sniffing charity, wilt 
protrusively proffer thy hand-lamp, and shriek, as 
one injured, when he kicks his foot through it? — 
Armer Teufell Doth not thy cow calve, doth not 
thy bull gender? Thou thyself, wert thou not born, 
wilt thou not die? ' Explain' me all this, or do one 
of two things : Retire into private places with thy 



74 SARTOR RESARTUS. book I. 

foolish cackle ; or, what were better, give it up, and 
weep, not that the reign of wonder is done, and God's 
world all disembellished and prosaic, but that thou 
hitherto art a Dilettante and sand-blind Pedant." 



CHAPTER XL 

PROSPECTIVE. 

The Philosophy of Clothes is now to all readers, as 
we predicted it would do, unfolding itself into new 
boundless expansions, of a cloudcapt, almost chi- 
merical aspect, yet not without azure loomings in the 
far distance, and streaks as of an Elysian brightness ; 
the highly questionable purport and promise of which 
it is becoming more and more important for us to 
ascertain. Is that a real Elysian brightness, cries 
many a timid wayfarer, or the reflex of Pandemonian 
lava? Is it of a truth leading us into beatific Asphodel 
meadows, or the yellow-burning marl of a Hell-on- 
Earth ? 

Our Professor, like other Mystics, whether delirious 
or inspired, gives an Editor enough to do. Ever 
higher and dizzier are the heights he leads us to ; 
more piercing, all-comprehending, all-confounding 
are his views and glances. For example, this of 
Nature being not an Aggregate but a Whole : 

"Well sang the Hebrew Psalmist: 'If I take the 
wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost 
parts of the universe, God is there.' Thou thyself, 
O cultivated reader, who too probably art no Psalm- 



chap. xr. PROSPECTIVE. 75 

ist, but a Prosaist, knowing God only by tradition, 
knowest thou any corner of the world where at least 
Force is not? The drop which thou shakest from 
thy wet hand, rests not where it falls, but to-morrow 
thou findest it swept away ; already on the wings of 
the Northwind, it is nearing the Tropic of Cancer. 
How came it to evaporate, and not lie motionless? 
Thinkest thou there is aught motionless ; without 
Force, and utterly dead? 

"As I rode through the Schwarzwald, I said to 
myself: That little fire which glows star-like across 
the dark-growing (iiachtende) moor, where the sooty 
smith bends over his anvil, and thou hopest to replace 
thy lost horse-shoe, — is it a detached, separated 
speck, cut-oflf from the whole Universe ; or indis- 
solubly joined to the whole? Thou fool, that smithy- 
fire was (primarily) kindled at the Sun ; is fed by air 
that circulates from before Noah's Deluge, from 
beyond the Dogstar ; therein, with Iron Force, and 
Coal Force, and the far stranger Force of Man, are 
cunning affinities and battles and victories of Force 
brought about ; it is a little ganglion, or nervous 
centre, in the great vital system of Immensity. Call 
it, if thou wilt, an unconscious Altar, kindled on the 
bosom of the All ; whose iron sacrifice, whose iron 
smoke and influence reach quite through the All ; 
whose dingy Priest, not by word, yet by brain and 
sinew, preaches forth the mystery of Force ; nay 
preaches forth (exoterically enough) one little textlet 
from the Gospel of Freedom, the Gospel of Man's 
Force^ commanding, and one day to be all-com- 
manding. 



76 SARTOR RESARTUS. book i. 

"Detached, separated! I say there is no such 
separation : nothing hitherto was ever stranded, cast 
aside ; but all, were it only a withered leaf, works 
together with all ; is borne forward on the bottomless, 
shoreless flood of Action, and lives through perpetual 
metamorphoses. The withered leaf is not dead and 
lost, there are Forces in it and around it, though 
working in inverse order ; else how could it rot f 
Despise not the rag from which man makes Paper, 
or the litter from which the earth makes Corn. 
Rightly viewed no meanest object is insignificant ; 
all objects are as windows, through which the philo- 
sophic eye looks into Infinitude itself. 1 ' 

Again, leaving that wondrous Schwarzwald Smithy- 
Altar, what vacant, high-sailing air-ships are these, 
and whither will they sail with us ? 

" All visible things are emblems ; what thou seest is 
not there on its. own account ; strictly taken, is not 
there at all : Matter exists only spiritually, and to 
represent some Idea, and body it forth. Hence 
Clothes, as despicable as we think them, are so 
unspeakably significant. Clothes, from the King's 
mantle downwards, are emblematic, not of want only, 
but of a manifold cunning Victory over Want. On 
the other hand, all Emblematic things are properly 
Clothes, thought-woven or hand-woven : must not 
the Imagination weave Garments, visible Bodies, 
wherein the else invisible creations and inspirations 
of our Reason are, like Spirits, revealed, and first 
become all-powerful ; — the rather if, as we often see, 
the Hand too aid her, and (by wool Clothes or. other- 
• wise) reveal such even to the outward eye ? 



\ 



chap. xi. PROSPECTIVE. 77 

" Men are properly said to be clothed with Author- 
ity, clothed with Beauty, with Curses, and the like. 
Nay, if you consider it, what is Man himself, and his 
whole terrestrial Life, but an Emblem ; a Clothing or 
visible Garment for that divine Me of his, cast hither, 
like a light-particle, down from Heaven? Thus is he 
said also to be clothed with a Body. 

"Language is called the Garment of Thought: 
however, it should rather be, Language is the Flesh- 
Garment, the Body, of Thought. I said that Imagin- 
ation wove this Flesh-Garment ; and does not she ? 
Metaphors are her stuff: examine Language; what, 
if you except some few primitive elements (of natural 
sound), what is it all but Metaphors, recognized as 
such, or no longer recognized ; still fluid and florid, 
or now solid-grown and colorless? If those same 
primitive elements are the osseous fixtures in the 
Flesh-Garment, Language, — then are Metaphors its 
muscles and tissues and living integuments. An 
unmetaphorical style you shall in vain seek for : is 
not your very Attention a Stretching-to ? The differ- 
ence lies here : some styles are lean, adust, wiry, the 
muscle itself seems osseous ; some are even quite 
pallid, hunger-bitten and dead-looking ; while others 
again glow in the flush of health and vigorous self- 
growth, sometimes (as in my own case) not without 
an apoplectic tendency. Moreover, there are sham 
Metaphors, which overhanging that same Thought's- 
Body (best naked), and deceptively bedizening, or 
bolstering it out, may be called its false stuffings, 
superfluous show-cloaks {Put 2- Mantel), and tawdry 
woollen rags : whereof he that runs and reads may 
gather whole hampers, — and burn them."" 



78 SARTOR RESARTUS. book i. 

Than which paragraph on Metaphors did the 
reader ever chance to see a more surprisingly meta- 
phorical ? However, that is not our chief grievance ; 
the Professor continues : 

"Why multiply instances? It is written, the 
Heavens and the Earth shall fade away like a Ves- 
ture ; which indeed they are : the Time-vesture of 
the Eternal. Whatsoever sensibly exists, whatso- 
ever represents Spirit to Spirit, is properly a Clothing, 
a suit of Raiment, put on for a season, and to be laid 
off. Thus in this one pregnant subject of Clothes, 
rightly understood, is included all that men have 
thought, dreamed, done, and been : the whole Exter- 
nal Universe and what it holds is but Clothing ; and 
the essence of all Science lies in the Philosophy of 
Clothes. 1 ' 

Towards these dim infinitely-expanded regions, 
close-bordering on the impalpable Inane, it is not 
without apprehension, and perpetual difficulties, that 
the Editor sees himself journeying and struggling. 
Till lately a cheerful daystar of hope hung before 
him, in the expected Aid of Hofrath Heuschrecke ; 
which daystar, however, melts now, not into the red 
of morning, but into a vague, gray half-light, uncer- 
tain whether dawn of day or dusk of utter darkness. 
For the last week, these so-called Biographical Docu- 
ments are in his hand. By the kindness of a Scottish 
Hamburg Merchant, whose name, known to the whole 
mercantile world, he must not mention ; but whose 
honorable courtesy, now. and often before spontane- 
ously manifested to him, a mere literary stranger, he 
cannot soon forget, — the bulky Weissnichtwo Packet, 



chap. xi. PROSPECTIVE. 79 

with all its Customhouse seals, foreign hieroglyphs, 
and miscellaneous tokens of Travel, arrived here in 
perfect safety, and free of cost. The reader shall now 
fancy with what hot haste it was broken up, with 
what breathless expectation glanced over; and, alas, 
with what unquiet disappointment it has, since then, 
been often thrown down, and again taken up. 

Hofrath Heuschrecke, in a too long-winded Letter, 
full of compliments, Weissnichtwo politics, dinners, 
dining repartees, and other ephemeral trivialities, 
proceeds to remind us of what we knew well already : 
that however it may be with Metaphysics, and other 
abstract Science originating in the Head (Verstand*) 
alone, no Life-Philosophy {LebenspJiilosophie) , such 
as this of Clothes pretends to be, which originates 
equally in the Character (Gemiit/t), and equally 
speaks thereto, can attain its significance till the 
Character itself is known and seen ; ' ' till the Author's 
View of the World (Weltansicht}, and how he 
actively and passively came by such view, are clear : 
in short till a Biography of him has been philosophico- 
poetically written, and philosophico-poetically read." 
"Nay," adds he, "were the speculative scientific 
Truth even known, you still, in this inquiring age, 
ask yourself, Whence came it, and Why, and How ? — 
and rest not, till, if no better may be, Fancy have 
shaped-out an answer ; and either in the authentic 
lineaments of Fact, or the forged ones of Fiction, a 
complete picture and Genetical History of the Man 
and his spiritual Endeavor lies before you. But why," 
says the Hofrath, and indeed say we, " do I dilate on 
the uses of our Teufelsdrockh , s Biography? The 



8o SARTOR RESARTUS. book r. 

great Herr Minister von Goethe has penetratingly 
remarked that ' Man is properly the only object that 
interests man : ' thus I too have noted, that in 
Weissnichtwo our whole conversation is little or 
nothing else but Biography or Auto-Biography ; ever 
humano-anecdotical (inenschlich-anekdotiscli) . Biog- 
raphy is by nature the most universally profitable, 
universally pleasant of all things : especially Biog- 
raphy of distinguished individuals. 

" By this time, mein Verehrtester (my Most 
Esteemed),' 1 continues he, with an eloquence which, 
unless the words be purloined from Teufelsdrockh, or 
some trick of his, as we suspect, is well-nigh unac- 
countable, "by this time you are fairly plunged 
{vertieft} in that mighty forest of Clothes-Philos- 
ophy ; and looking round, as all readers do, with 
astonishment enough. Such portions and passages 
as you have already mastered, and brought to paper, 
could not but awaken a strange curiosity touching 
the mind they issued from ; the perhaps unparal- 
leled psychical mechanism, which manufactured such 
matter, and emitted it to the light of day. Had 
Teufelsdrockh also a father and mother ; did he, at 
one time, wear drivel-bibs, and live on spoon-meat? 
Did he ever, in rapture and tears, clasp a friend's 
bosom to his ; looks he also wistfully into the long 
burial-aisle of the Past, where only winds, and their 
low harsh moan, give inarticulate answer? Has he 
fought duels ; — good Heaven ! how did he comport 
himself when in Love? By what singular stair-steps, 
in short, and subterranean passages, and sloughs of 
Despair, and steep Pisgah hills, has he reached this 



CHAP. XI. 



PROSPECTIVE. ' 8 1 



wonderful prophetic Hebron (a true Old-Clothes 
Jewry) where he now dwells? 

" To all these natural questions the voice of public 
History is as yet silent. Certain only that he has been, 
and is, a Pilgrim, and Traveller from a far Country; 
more or less footsore and travel-soiled ; has parted 
with road-companions ; fallen among thieves, been 
poisoned by bad cookery, blistered with bugbites ; 
nevertheless, at every stage (for they have let him 
pass), has had the Bill to discharge. But the whole 
particulars of his Route, his Weather-observations, 
the picturesque Sketches he took, though all regularly 
jotted down (in indelible sympathetic-ink by an 
invisible interior Penman), are these nowhere forth- 
coming? Perhaps quite lost: one other leaf of that 
mighty Volume (of human Memory) left to fly abroad, 
unprinted, unpublished, unbound up, as waste paper; 
and to rot, the sport of rainy winds ? 

" No, verehrtester He?'r Herausgeber, in no wise! 
I here, by the unexampled favor you stand in with 
our Sage, send not a Biography only, but an Auto- 
biography : at least the materials for such ; wherefrom, 
if I misreckon not, your perspicacity will draw fullest 
insight : and so the whole Philosophy and Philos- 
opher of Clothes will stand clear to the wondering 
eyes of England, nay thence, through America, 
through Hindostan, and the antipodal New Holland, 
finally conquer (einnekmen) great part of this terres- 
trial Planet ! " 

And now let the sympathizing reader judge of our 
feeling when, in place of this same Autobiography 
with "fullest insight," we find — Six considerable 



82 SARTOR RESARTUS. book i. 

Paper-Bags, carefully sealed, and marked succes- 
sively, in gilt China-ink, with the symbols of the Six 
southern Zodiacal Signs, beginning at Libra; in the 
inside of which sealed Bags lie miscellaneous masses 
of Sheets, and oftener Shreds and Snips, written 
in Professor Teufelsdrockh^s scarce legible cursiv- 
schrift ; and treating of all imaginable things under 
the Zodiac and above it, but of his own personal 
history only at rare intervals, and then in the most 
enigmatic manner. 

Whole fascicles there are, wherein the Professor, 
or, as he here, speaking in the third person, calls 
himself, " the Wanderer," is not once named. Then 
again, amidst what seems to be a Metaphysico-theo- 
logical Disquisition, "Detached Thoughts on the 
Steam-engine," or, " The continued Possibility of 
Prophecy," we shall meet with some quite private, 
not unimportant Biographical fact. On certain sheets 
stand Dreams, authentic or not, while the circum- 
jacent waking Actions are omitted. Anecdotes, 
oftenest without date of place or time, fly loosely on 
separate slips, like Sibylline leaves. Interspersed 
also are long purely Autobiographical delineations ; 
yet without connection, without recognizable cohe- 
rence ; so unimportant, so superfluously minute, they 
almost remind us of "P. P. Clerk of this Parish." 
Thus does the famine of intelligence alternate with 
waste. Selection, order, appears to be unknown to 
the Professor. In all Bags the same imbroglio ; only 
perhaps in the Bag Capricorn, and those near it, the 
confusion a little worse confounded. Close by a 
rather eloquent Oration, " On receiving the Doctor's- 
Hat," lie wash-bills, marked bezahlt (settled). His 



CHAP. XI. 



PROSPECTIVE. 83 



Travels are indicated by the Street-Advertisements 
of the various cities he has visited ; of which Street- 
Advertisements, in most living tongues, here is per- 
haps the completest collection extant. 

So that if the Clothes-Volume itself was too like a 
Chaos, we have now instead of the solar Luminary 
that should still it, the airy Limbo which by inter- 
mixture will farther volatilize and discompose it ! As 
we shall perhaps see it our duty ultimately to deposit 
these Six Paper-Bags in the British Museum, farther 
description, and all vituperation of them, may be 
spared. Biography or Autobiography of Teufels- 
drockh there is, clearly enough, none to be gleaned 
here : at most some sketchy, shadowy fugitive like- 
ness of him may, by unheard-of efforts, partly of 
intellect, partly of imagination, on the side of Editor 
and of Reader, rise up between them. Only as a 
gaseous-chaotic Appendix to that aqueous-chaotic 
Volume can the contents of the Six Bags hover round 
us, and portions thereof be incorporated with out 
delineation of it. 

Daily and nightly does the Editor sit (with green 
spectacles) deciphering these unimaginable Docu- 
ments from their perplexed cursiv-schrift ; collating 
them with the almost equally unimaginable Volume, 
which stands in legible print. Over such a universal 
medley of high and low, of hot, cold, moist and dry, 
is he here struggling (by union of like with like, 
which is Method) to build a firm Bridge for British 
travellers. Never perhaps since our first Bridge- 
builders, Sin and Death, built that stupendous Arch 
from Hell-gate to the Earth, did any Pontifex, or 
Pontiff, undertake such a task as the present Editor. 



8 4 SARTOR RESARTUS. book i. 

For in this Arch too, leading, as we humbly presume, 
far otherwards than that grand primeval one, the 
materials are to be fished-up from the weltering deep, 
and down from the simmering air, here one mass, 
there another, and cunningly cemented, while the 
elements boil beneath : nor is there any supernatural 
force to do it with ; but simply the Diligence and 
feeble thinking Faculty of an English Editor, endeav- 
oring to evolve printed Creation out of a German 
printed and written Chaos, wherein, as he shoots to 
and fro in it, gathering, clutching, piecing the Why 
to the far-distant Wherefore, his whole Faculty and 
Self are like to be swallowed up. 

Patiently, under these incessant toils and agitations, 
does the Editor, dismissing all anger, see his other- 
wise robust health declining ; some fraction of his 
allotted natural sleep nightly leaving him, and little 
but an inflamed nervous-system to be looked for. 
What is the use of health, or of life, if not to do some 
Avork therewith? And what work nobler than trans- 
planting foreign Thought into the barren domestic 
soil ; except indeed planting Thought of your own, 
which the fewest are privileged to do? Wild as it 
looks, this Philosophy of Clothes, can we ever reach 
its real meaning, promises to reveal new-coming 
Eras, the first dim rudiments and already-budding 
germs of a nobler Era, in Universal History. Is not 
such a prize worth some striving? Forward with us, 
courageous reader ; be it towards failure, or towards 
success ! The latter thou sharest with us ; the former 
also is not all our own. 



BOOK SECOND. 



CHAPTER I. 

GENESIS. 



In a psychological point of view, it is perhaps 
questionable whether from birth and genealogy, how 
closely scrutinized soever, much insight is to be 
gained. Nevertheless, as in every phenomenon the 
Beginning remains always the most notable moment ; 
so, with regard to any great man, we rest not till, for 
our scientific profit or not, the whole circumstances 
of his first appearance in this Planet, and what man- 
ner of Public Entry he made, are with utmost com- 
pleteness rendered manifest. To the Genesis of our 
Clothes-Philosopher, then, be this First Chapter con- 
secrated. Unhappily, indeed, he seems to be of quite 
obscure extraction ; uncertain, we might almost say, 
whether of any : so that this Genesis of his can prop- 
erly be nothing but an Exodus (or transit out of 
Invisibility into Visibility) ; whereof the preliminary 
portion is nowhere forthcoming. 

" In the village of Entepfuhl," thus writes he, in 
the Bag Libra, on various Papers, which we arrange 
with difficulty, " dwelt Andreas Futteral and his wife ; 
childless, in still seclusion, and cheerful though now 

85 



86 SARTOR RESARTUS. , book ii. 

verging towards old age. Andreas had been gren- 
adier Sergeant, and even regimental Schoolmaster 
under Frederick the Great ; but now, quitting the 
halbert and ferule for the spade and pruning-hook, 
cultivated a little Orchard, on the produce of 
which he, Cincinnatus-like, lived not without dignity. 
Fruits, the peach, the apple, the grape, with other 
varieties came in their season ; all which Andreas 
knew how to sell : on evenings he smoked largely, or 
read (as beseemed a regimental Schoolmaster) , and 
talked to neighbors that would listen about the Vic- 
tory of Rossbach ; and how Fritz the Only (tier 
Einzige) had once with his own royal lips spoken to 
him, had been pleased to say, when Andreas as 
camp-sentinel demanded the pass-word, ' Schweig," 1 
Hund ( Peace, hound)!' before any of his staff-adju- 
tants could answer. ' Das nenti 1 ich mir einen K'dnig, 
There is what I call a King,' would Andreas exclaim : 
' but the smoke of Kunersdorf was still smarting his 
eyes. 1 

" Gretchen, the housewife, won like Desdemona 
by the deeds rather than the looks of her now veteran 
Othello, lived not in altogether military subordina- 
tion ; for, as Andreas said, ' the womankind will not 
drill (wer kann die Weiberchen dressireii) : ' neverthe- 
less she at heart loved him both for valor and wis- 
dom ; to her a Prussian grenadier Sergeant and 
Regiment's Schoolmaster was little other than a 
Cicero and Cid : what you see, yet cannot see over, 
is as good as infinite. Nay, was not Andreas in very 
deed a man of order, courage, downrightness (Ge- 
radheif) ; that understood Busching's Geography, had 






chap. i. GENESIS. 87 

• 

been in the victory of Rossbach, and left for dead in 
the camisade of Hochkirch? The good Gretchen, 
for all her fretting, watched over him and hovered 
round him as only a true housemother can : assidu- 
ously she cooked and sewed and scoured for him ; so 
that not only his old regimental sword and grenadier- 
cap, but the whole habitation and environment, where 
on pegs of honor they hung, looked ever trim and 
gay : a roomy painted Cottage, embowered in fruit- 
trees, and forest-trees, evergreens and honeysuckles ; 
rising many-colored from amid shaven grass-plots, 
flowers struggling-in through the very windows ; 
under its long projecting eaves nothing but garden- 
tools in methodic piles (to screen them from rain), 
and seats where, especially on summer nights, a King 
might have wished to sit and smoke, and call it his. 
Such a Bauer gut (Copyhold) had Gretchen given her 
veteran ; whose sinewy arms, and long-disused gar- 
dening talent, had made it what you saw. 

"Into this umbrageous ManVnest, one meek 
yellow evening or dusk, when the Sun, hidden indeed 
from terrestrial Entepfuhl, did nevertheless jour- 
ney visible and radiant along the celestial Balance 
{Libra), it was that a Stranger of reverend aspect 
entered, and, with grave salutation, stood before 
the two rather astonished housemates. He was 
close-muffled in a wide mantle ; which without farther 
parley unfolding, he deposited therefrom what seemed 
some Basket, overhung with green Persian silk : 
saying only : Ihr lieben Leute, hier bringe ein un- 
schatsbares Verleihen ; nehmt es in alter Ac/it, sorg- 
faltigst beniitzt es : mit JwJievi Lohn> oder wohl mit 



88 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

schweren Zinsen, wird's einst zuruchgefordert . ' Good 
Christian people, here lies for you an invaluable 
Loan ; take all heed thereof, in all carefulness employ 
it : with high recompense, or else with heavy penalty, 
will it one day be required back. 1 Uttering which 
singular words, in a clear, bell-like, forever memor- 
able tone, the Stranger gracefully withdrew ; and 
before Andreas or his wife, gazing in expectant won- 
der, had time to fashion either question or answer, 
was clean gone. Neither out of doors could aught of 
him be seen or heard ; he had vanished in the thick- 
ets, in the dusk ; the Orchard-gate stood quietly 
closed : the Stranger was gone once and always. So 
sudden had the whole transaction been, in the autumn 
stillness and twilight, so gentle, noiseless, that the 
Futterals could have fancied it all a trick of Imagina- 
tion, or some visit from an authentic Spirit. Only 
that the green-silk Basket, such as neither Imagina- 
tion nor authentic Spirits are wont to carry, still 
stood visible and tangible on their little parlor-table. 
Towards this the astonished couple, now with lit 
candle, hastily turned their attention. Lifting the 
green veil, to see what invaluable it hid, they descried 
there, amid down and rich white wrappages, no Pitt 
Diamond or Hapsburg Regalia, but, in the softest 
sleep, a little* red-colored Infant! Beside it, lay a 
roll of gold Friedrichs, the exact amount of which 
was never publicly known ; also a Taufschein (bap- 
tismal certificate) , wherein unfortunately nothing but 
the Name was decipherable ; other document or 
indication none whatever. 

" To wonder and conjecture was unavailing, then 



CHAP. I. 



GENESIS. 89 



and always thenceforth. Nowhere in Entepfuhl, on 
the morrow or next day, did tidings transpire of any 
such figure as the Stranger ; nor could the Traveller, 
who had passed through the neighboring Town in 
coach-and-four, be connected with this Apparition, 
except in the way of gratuitous surmise. Meanwhile, 
for Andreas and his wife, the grand practical problem 
was : What to do with this little sleeping red-colored 
Infant? Amid amazements and curiosities, which 
had to die away without external satisfying, they 
resolved, as in such circumstances charitable prudent 
people needs must, on nursing it, though with spoon- 
meat, into whiteness, and if possible into manhood. 
The Heavens smiled on their endeavor : thus has 
that same mysterious Individual ever since had a 
status for himself in this visible Universe, some 
modicum of victual and lodging and parade-ground ; 
and now expanded in bulk, faculty and knowledge of 
good and evil, he, as Herr Diogenes Teufels- 
drockh, professes or is ready to profess, perhaps 
not altogether without effect, in the new University 
of Weissnichtwo, the new Science of Things in 
General.'" 

Our Philosopher declares here, as indeed we should 
think he well might, that these facts, first commu- 
nicated, by the good Gretchen Futteral, in his twelfth 
year, "produced on the boyish heart and fancy a 
quite indelible impression. Who this reverend Per- 
sonage," he says, " that glided into the Orchard 
Cottage when the Sun was in Libra, and then, as on 
spirit's wings, glided out again, might be? An inex- 
pressible desire, full of love and of sadness, has often 



90 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

since struggled within me to shape an answer. Ever, 
in my distresses and my loneliness, has Fantasy 
turned, full of longing (seknsuchtsvoll) , to that un- 
known Father, who perhaps far from me, perhaps 
near, either way invisible, might have taken me to 
his paternal bosom, there to lie screened from many 
a woe. Thou beloved Father, dost thou still, shut 
out from me only by thin penetrable curtains of earthly 
Space, wend to and fro among the crowd of the 
living? Or art thou hidden by those far thicker cur- 
tains of the Everlasting Night, or rather of the Ever- 
lasting Day, through which my mortal eye and 
outstretched arms need not strive to reach? Alas, 
I know not, and in vain vex myself to know. More 
than once, heart-deluded, have I taken for thee this 
and the other noble-looking Stranger ; and approached 
him wistfully, with infinite regard ; but he too had to 
repel me, he too was not thou. 

"And yet, O Man born of Woman," cries the 
Autobiographer, with one of his sudden whirls, 
" wherein is my case peculiar? Hadst thou, any more 
than I, a Father whom thou knowest? The Andreas 
and Gretchen, or the Adam and Eve, who led thee 
into Life, and for a time suckled and pap-fed thee 
there, whom thou namest Father and Mother ; these 
were, like mine, but thy nursing-father and nursing- 
mother : thy true Beginning and Father is in Heaven, 
whom with the bodily eye thou shalt never behold, 
but only with the spiritual." 

"The little green veil," adds he, among much 
similar moralizing, and embroiled discoursing, " I 
yet keep ; still more inseparably the Name, Diogenes 



chap. i. GENESIS. 91 

Teufelsdrockh. From the veil can nothing be in- 
ferred : a piece of now quite faded Persian silk, like 
thousands of others. On the Name I have many 
times meditated and conjectured ; but neither in this 
lay there any clew. That it was my unknown Father's 
name I must hesitate to believe. To no purpose have 
I searched through all the Herald's Books, in and 
without the German Empire, and through all manner 
of Subscriber-Lists (Pranumeranten) , Militia-Rolls, 
and other Name-catalogues ; extraordinary names as 
we have in Germany, the name Teufelsdrockh, except 
as appended to my own person, nowhere occurs. 
Again, what may the unchristian rather than Chris- 
tian " Diogenes" mean? Did that reverend Basket- 
bearer intend, by such designation, to shadow-forth 
my future destiny, or his own present malign humor? 
Perhaps the latter, perhaps both. Thou ill-starred 
Parent, who like an Ostrich hadst to leave thy ill- 
starred offspring to be hatched into self-support by 
the mere sky-influences of Chance, can thy pilgrim- 
age have been a smooth one ? Beset by Misfortune 
thou doubtless hast been ; or indeed by the worst 
figure of Misfortune, by Misconduct. Often have I 
fancied how, in thy hard life-battle, thou wert shot 
at, and slung at, wounded, hand-fettered, hamstrung, 
browbeaten and bedevilled by the Time-Spirit (Zeit- 
geist) in thyself and others, till the good soul first 
given thee was seared into grim rage ; and thou hadst 
nothing for it but to leave in me an indignant appeal 
to the Future, and living speaking Protest against 
the Devil, as that same Spirit not of the Time only, 
but of Time itself, is well named ! Which Appeal 



92 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

and Protest, may I now modestly add, was not per- 
haps quite lost in air. 

"For indeed, as Walter Shandy often insisted, 
there is much, nay almost all, in Names. The Name 
is the earliest Garment you wrap round the earth- 
visiting Me ; to which it thenceforth cleaves, more 
tenaciously (for there are Names that have lasted 
nigh thirty centuries) than the very skin. And now 
from without, what mystic influences does it not send 
inwards, even to the centre ; especially in those 
plastic first-times, when the whole soul is yet infan- 
tine, soft, and'the invisible seedgrain will grow to be 
an all overshadowing tree ! Names ? Could I unfold 
the influence of Names, which are the most important 
of all Clothings, I were a second greater Trismegistus. 
Not only all common Speech, but Science, Poetry 
itself, is no other, if thou consider it, than a right 
Naming. Adam's first task was giving names to 
natural Appearances : what is ours still but a 
continuation of the same ; be the Appearances exotic- 
vegetable, organic, mechanic, stars, or starry move- 
ments (as in Science) ; or (as in Poetry) passions, 
virtues, calamities, God-attributes, Gods? — In a 
very plain sense the Proverb says, Call one a thief, 
ajid he will steal; in an almost similar sense may we 
not perhaps say, Call one Diogenes Teufelsdr'ockh, and 
he will open the Philosophy of Clothes ? " 

"Meanwhile the incipient Diogenes, like others, 
all ignorant of his Why, his How or Whereabout, 
was opening his eyes to the kind Light ; sprawling- 
out his ten fingers and toes ; listening, tasting, feel- 



chap. i. GENESIS. 93 

ing; in a word, by all his Five Senses, still more by 
his Sixth Sense of Hunger, and a whole infinitude of 
inward, spiritual, half-awakened Senses, endeavoring 
daily to acquire for himself some knowledge of this 
strange Universe where he had arrived, be his task 
therein what it might. Infinite was his progress ; 
thus in some fifteen months, he could perform the 
miracle of — Speech! To breed a fresh Soul, is it 
not like brooding a fresh (celestial) Egg; wherein 
as yet all is formless, powerless ; yet by degrees 
organic elements and fibres shoot through the watery 
albumen ; and out of vague Sensation grows Thought, 
grows Fantasy and Force, and we have Philosophies, 
Dynasties, nay Poetries and Religions ! 

" Young Diogenes, or rather young Gneschen, for 
by such diminutive had they in their fondness named 
him, travelled forward to those high consummations, 
by quick yet easy stages. The Futterals,' to avoid 
vain talk, and moreover keep the roll of gold Fried- 
richs safe, gave-out that he was a grand-nephew ; 
the orphan of some sister's daughter, suddenly de- 
ceased, in Andreas's distant Prussian birthland ; of 
whom, as of her indigent sorrowing widower, little 
enough was known at Entepfuhl. Heedless of all 
which, the Nursling took to his spoon-meat, and 
throve. I have heard him noted as a still infant, 
that kept his mind much to himself; above all, that 
seldom or never cried. He already felt that time 
was precious ; that he had other work cut-out for 
him than whimpering. " 

Such, after utmost painful search and collation 
among these miscellaneous Paper-masses, is all the 



94 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

notice we can gather of Herr TeufelsdrocklVs gene- 
alogy. More imperfect, more enigmatic it can seem 
to few readers than to us. The Professor, in whom 
truly we more and more discern a certain satirical 
turn, and deep under-currents of roguish whim, for 
the present stands pledged in honor, so we will not 
doubt him : but seems it not conceivable that, by the 
good " Gretchen Futteral," or some other perhaps 
interested party, he has himself been deceived ? 
Should these sheets, translated or not, ever reach the 
Entepfuhl Circulating Library, some cultivated native 
of that district might feel called to afford explanation. 
Nay, since Books, like invisible scouts, permeate 
the whole habitable globe, and Timbuctoo itself is 
not safe from British Literature, may not some Copy 
find out even the mysterious basket-bearing Stranger, 
who in a state of extreme senility perhaps still exists ; 
and gently force even him to disclose himself; to 
claim openly a son, in whom any father may feel 
pride ? 



CHAPTER II. 

IDYLLIC. 

" Happy season of Childhood ! " exclaims Teufels- 
drockh : "Kind Nature, that art to all a bountiful 
mother ; that visitest the poor man's hut with auroral 
radiance ; and for thy Nursling hast provided a soft 
swathing of Love and infinite Hope, wherein he 
waxes and slumbers, danced-round (ii?ngaukelf) by 
sweetest Dreams ! If the paternal Cottage still shuts 



chap. ii. IDYLLIC. 95 

us in, its roof still screens us ; with a Father we 
have as yet a prophet, priest and king, and an Obedi- 
ence that makes us free. The young spirit has 
awakened out of Eternity, and knows not what we 
mean by Time ; as yet Time is no fast-hurrying 
stream, but a sportful sunlit ocean ; years to the child 
are as ages : ah ! the secret of Vicissitude, of that 
slower or quicker decay and ceaseless down-rushing 
of the universal World-fabric, from the granite moun- 
tain to the man or day-moth, is yet unknown ; and in 
a motionless Universe, we taste, what afterwards 
in this quick-whirling Universe is forever denied us, 
the balm of Rest. Sleep on, thou fair Child, for thy 
long rough journey is at hand ! A little while, and 
thou too shalt sleep no more, but thy very dreams 
shall be mimic battles ; thou too, with old Arnauld, 
wilt have to say in stern patience: 'Rest? Rest? 
Shall I not have all Eternity to rest in ? ' Celestial 
Nepenthe ! though a Pyrrhus conquer empires, and 
an Alexander sack the world, he finds thee not ; and 
thou hast once fallen gently, of thy own accord, on 
the eyelids, on the heart of every mother's child. 
For as yet, sleejD and waking are one : the fair Life- 
garden rustles infinite around, and everywhere is 
dewy fragrance, and the budding of Hope ; which 
budding, if in youth, too frostnipt, it grow to flowers, 
will in manhood yield no fruit, but a prickly, bitter- 
rinded stone-fruit, of which the fewest can find the 
kernel.'" 

In such rose-colored light does our Professor, as 
Poets are wont, look back on his childhood ; the 
historical details of which (to say nothing of much 



96 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ir. 

other vague oratorical matter) he accordingly dwells 
on • with an almost wearisome minuteness. We hear 
of Entepfuhl standing "in trustful derangement" 
among the woody slopes ; the paternal Orchard flank- 
ing it as extreme outpost from below ; the little 
Kuhbach gushing kindly by, among beech-rows, 
through river after river, into the Donau, into the 
Black Sea, into the Atmosphere and Universe ; and 
how " the brave old Linden," stretching like a 
parasol of twenty ells in radius, overtopping all other 
rows and clumps, towered-up from the central Agora 
and Campus Martins of the Village, like its Sacred 
Tree ; and how the old men sat talking under its 
shadow (Gneschen often greedily listening), and the 
wearied laborers reclined, and the unwearied children 
sported, and the young men and maidens often 
danced to flute-music. " Glorious summer twilights," 
cries Teufelsdrockh, " when the Sun, like a proud 
Conqueror and Imperial Taskmaster, turned his back, 
with his gold-purple emblazonry, and all his fireclad 
body-guard (of Prismatic Colors) ; and the tired 
brickmakers of this clay Earth might steal a little 
frolic, and those few meek Stars would not tell of 
them ! " 

Then we have long details of the Weinlesen (Vint- 
age), the Harvest-Home, Christmas, and so forth; 
with a whole cycle of the Entepfuhl Children's- 
games, differing apparently by mere superficial shades 
from those of other countries. Concerning all which, 
we shall here, for obvious reasons, say nothing. 
What cares the world for our as yet miniature Philos- 
opher's achievements under that " brave old Linden"? 



chap. ii. IDYLLIC. 97 

Or even where is the use of such practical reflections 
as the following? "In all the sports of Children, 
were it only in their wanton breakages and deface- 
ments, you shall discern a creative instinct {s chaff en- 
den Trieb) : the Mankin feels that he is a born Man, 
that his vocation is to work. The choicest present 
you can make him is a Tool ; be it knife or pen- 
gun, for construction or for destruction ; either way 
it is for Work, for Change. In gregarious sports of 
skill or strength, the Boy trains himself to Co-opera- 
tion, for war or peace, as governor or governed : the 
little Maid again, provident of her domestic destiny, 
takes with preference to Dolls. 11 

Perhaps, however, we may give this anecdote, con- 
sidering who it is that relates it: "My first short- 
. clothes were of yellow serge ; or rather, I should say, 
my first short-cloth, for the vesture was one and 
indivisible, reaching from neck to ankle, a mere 
body with four limbs : of which fashion how little 
could I then divine the architectural, how much less 
the moral significance ! " 

More graceful is the following little picture : " On 
fine evenings I was wont to carry-forth my supper 
(bread-crumb boiled in milk), and eat it out-of- 
doors. On the coping of the Orchard-wall, which I 
could reach by climbing, or still more easily if Father 
Andreas would set-up the pruning-ladder, my por- 
ringer was placed : there, many a sunset, have I, 
looking at the distant western Mountains, consumed, 
not without relish, my evening meal. Those hues of 
gold and azure, that hush of Worlds expectation as 
Day died, were still a Hebrew Speech for me ; never- 



98 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

theless I was looking at the fair illuminated Letters, 
and had an eye for their gilding. 11 

With "the little one's friendship for cattle and 
poultry " we shall not much intermeddle. It may be 
that hereby he acquired a " certain deeper sympathy 
with animated Nature : " but when, we would ask, 
saw any man, in a collection of Biographical Docu- 
ments, such a piece as this: "Impressive enough 
(bedeutungsvoll) was it to hear, in early morning, 
the Swineherd's horn ; and know that so many hungry 
happy quadrupeds were, on all sides, starting in hot 
haste to join him, for breakfast on the Heath. Or to 
see them at eventide, all marching-in again, with 
short squeak, almost in military order ; and each, 
topographically correct, trotting-off in succession to 
the right or left, through its own lane, to its own 
dwelling ; till old Kunz, at the Village-head, now 
left alone, blew his last blast, and retired for the 
night. We are wont to love the Hog chiefly in the 
form of Ham ; yet did not these bristly thick-skinned 
beings here manifest intelligence, perhaps humor of 
character ; at any rate, a touching, trustful sub- 
missiveness to Man, — who, were he but a Swine- 
herd, in darned gabardine, and leather breeches 
more resembling slate or discolored-tin breeches, is 
still the Hierarch of this lower world ? " 

It is maintained, by Helvetius and his set, that an 
infant of genius is quite the same as any other infant, 
only that certain surprisingly favorable influences 
accompany him through life, especially through child- 
hood, and expand him, while others lie closefolded 
and continue dunces. Herein, say they, consists the 



chap ii. IDYLLIC. 99 

whole difference between an inspired Prophet and a 
double-barrelled Game-preserver : the inner man of 
the one has been fostered into generous develop- 
ment ; that of the other, crushed-down perhaps by- 
vigor of animal digestion, and the like, has exuded 
and evaporated, or at best sleeps now irresuscitably 
stagnant at the bottom of his stomach. " With which 
opinion," cries Teufelsdrockh, "I should as soon 
agree as with this other, that an acorn might, by 
favorable or unfavorable influences of soil and climate, 
be nursed into a cabbage, or the cabbage-seed into 
an oak. 

" Nevertheless," continues he, " I too acknowl- 
edge the ail-but omnipotence of early culture and 
nurture : hereby we have either a doddered dwarf 
bush, or a high-towering, wide-shadowing tree ; either 
a sick yellow cabbage, or an edible luxuriant green 
one. Of a truth, it is the duty of all men, especially 
of all philosophers, to note-down with accuracy the 
characteristic circumstances of their Education, what 
furthered, what hindered, what in any way modified 
it : to which duty, nowadays so pressing for many a 
German Autobiographer, I also zealously address 
myself.' 1 — Thou rogue! Is it by short-clothes of 
yellow serge, and swineherd horns, that an infant of 
genius is educated ? And yet, as usual, it ever remains 
doubtful whether he is laughing in his sleeve at these 
Autobiographical times of ours, or writing from the 
abundance of his own fond ineptitude. For he 
continues : " If among the ever-streaming currents of 
Sights, Hearings, Feelings for Pain or Pleasure, 
whereby, as in a Magic Hall, young Gneschen went 



ioo SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

about environed, I might venture to select and 
specify, perhaps these following were also of the 
number : 

" Doubtless, as childish sports call forth Intellect, 
Activity, so the young creature's Imagination was 
stirred up, and a Historical tendency given him by 
the narrative habits of Father Andreas ; who, with 
his battle-reminiscences, and gray austere yet hearty 
patriarchal aspect, could not but appear another 
Ulysses and ' much-enduring Man.' Eagerly I hung 
upon his tales, when listening neighbors enlivened 
the hearth ; from these perils and these travels, wild 
and far almost as Hades itself, a dim world of Adven- 
ture expanded itself within me. Incalculable also 
was the knowledge I acquired in standing by the Old 
Men under the Linden-tree : the whole of Immensity 
was yet new to me ; and had not these reverend 
seniors, talkative enough, been employed in partial 
surveys thereof for nigh fourscore years? With 
amazement I began to discover that Entepfuhl stood 
in the middle of a Country, of a World ; that there 
was such a thing as History, as Biography ; to which 
I also, one day, by hand and tongue, might contribute. 

"In a like sense worked the Postwagen (Stage- 
coach), which, slow-rolling under its mountains of 
men and luggage, wended through our Village : north- 
wards, truly, in the dead of night; yet southwards 
visibly at eventide. Not till my eighth year did I 
reflect that this Postwagen could be other than some 
terrestrial Moon, rising and setting by mere Law of 
Nature, like the heavenly one ; that it came on made 
highways, from far cities towards far cities ; weaving 



chap. II. IDYLLIC. ioi 

them like a monstrous shuttle into closer and closer 
union. It was then that, independently of Schiller's 
Wilhelm Tell, I made this not quite insignificant 
reflection (so true also in spiritual things) : Any 
road, this simple Entepfuhl road, will lead you to the 
end of the World I 

"Why mention our Swallows, which, out of far 
Africa, as I learned, threading their way over seas 
and mountains, corporate cities and belligerent 
nations, yearly found themselves, with the month of 
May, snug-lodged in our Cottage Lobby? The hos- 
pitable Father (for cleanliness 1 sake) had fixed a 
little bracket plumb under their nest : there they built, 
and caught flies, and twittered, and bred ; and all, I 
chiefly, from the heart loved them. Bright, nimble 
creatures, who taught yoti the mason-craft ; nay, 
stranger still, gave you a masonic incorporation, 
almost social police ? For if, by ill chance, and when 
time pressed, your House fell, have I not seen five 
neighborly Helpers appear next day ; and swashing 
to and fro, with animated, loud, long-drawn chirp- 
ings, and activity almost superhirundine, complete it 
again before nightfall? 

" But undoubtedly the grand summary of Entepfuhl 
childVculture, where as in a funnel its manifold 
influences were concentrated and simultaneously 
poured-down on us, was the annual Cattle-fair. Here, 
assembling from all the four winds, came the elements 
of an unspeakable hurlyburly. Nutbrown maids and 
nutbrown men, all clear-washed, loud-laughing, 
bedizened and beribanded ; who came for dancing, 
for treating, and if possible, for happiness. Top- 



102 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

booted Graziers from the North ; Swiss Brokers, 
Italian Drovers, also topbooted, from the South ; these 
with their subalterns in leather jerkins, leather skull- 
caps, and long oxgoads ; shouting in half-articulate 
speech, amid the inarticulate barking and bellowing. 
Apart stood Potters from far Saxony, with their 
crockery in fair rows ; Niirnberg Pedlers, in booths 
that to me seemed richer than Ormuz bazaars ; Show- 
men from the Lago Maggiore ; detachments of the 
Wiener Schitb (Offscourings of Vienna) vociferously 
superintending games of chance. Ballad-singers 
brayed, Auctioneers grew hoarse ; cheap New Wine 
{heuriger) flowed like water, still worse confounding 
the confusion ; and high over all, vaulted, in ground- 
and-lofty tumbling, a particolored Merry-Andrew, 
like the genius of the place and of Life itself. 

"Thus encircled by the mystery of Existence; 
under the deep heavenly Firmament ; waited-on by 
the four golden Seasons, with their vicissitudes of 
contribution, for even grim Winter brought its skat- 
ing-matches and shooting-matches, its snow-storms 
and Christmas-carols, — did the Child sit and learn. 
These things were the Alphabet, whereby in after- 
time he was to syllable and partly read the grand 
Volume of the World : what matters it whether such 
Alphabet be in large gilt letters or in small ungilt 
ones, so you have an eye to read it? For Gneschen, 
eager to learn, the very act of looking thereon was 
a blessedness that gilded all : his existence was a 
bright, soft element of Joy ; out of which, as in 
Prospero's Island, wonder after wonder bodied itself 
forth, to teach by charming. 



chap. ii. IDYLLIC. 103 

" Nevertheless, I were but a vain dreamer to say, 
that even then my felicity was perfect. I had, once 
for all, come down from Heaven into the Earth. 
Among the rainbow colors that glowed on my hori- 
zon, lay even in childhood a dark ring of Care, as 
yet no thicker than a thread, and often quite over- 
shone ; yet always it reappeared, nay ever waxing 
broader and broader ; till in after-years it almost 
over-shadowed my whole canopy, and threatened to 
ingulf me in final night. It was the ring of Necessity 
whereby we are all begirt ; happy he for whom a 
kind heavenly Sun brightens it into a ring of Duty, 
and plays round it with beautiful prismatic diffrac- 
tions ; yet ever, as basis and as bourn for our whole 
being, it is there. 

" For the first few years of our terrestrial Appren- 
ticeship, we have not much work to do ; but, boarded 
and lodged gratis, are set down mostly to look about 
us over the workshop, and see others work, till we 
have understood the tools a little, and can handle this 
and that. If good Passivity alone, and not good 
Passivity and good Activity together, were the thing 
wanted, then was my early position favorable beyond 
the most. In all that respects openness of Sense, affec- 
tionate Temper, ingenuous Curiosity, and the foster- 
ing of these, what more could I have wished? On the 
other side, however, things went not so well. My 
Active Power (Thatkraff) was unfavorably hemmed- 
in ; of which misfortune how many traces yet abide 
with me ! In an orderly house, where the litter o f 
children's sports is hateful enough, your training is too 



104 SARTOR RESARTUS. book II. 

stoical ; rather to bear and forbear than to make and 
do. I was forbid much : wishes in any measure bold I 
had to renounce ; everywhere a strait bond of 
Obedience inflexibly held me down. Thus already 
Freewill often came in painful collision with Neces- 
sity ; so that my tears flowed, and at seasons the Child 
itself might taste that root of bitterness, wherewith 
the whole fruitage of our life is mingled and tempered. 
" In which habituation to Obedience, truly, it was 
beyond measure safer to err by excess than by defect. 
Obedience is our universal duty and destiny ; wherein 
whoso will not bend must break : too early and too 
thoroughly we cannot be trained to know that Would, 
in this world of ours, is as mere zero to Should, and 
for most part as the smallest of fractions even to 
Shall. Hereby was laid for me the basis of worldly 
Discretion, nay of Morality itself. Let me not 
quarrel with my upbringing. It was rigorous, too 
frugal, compressively secluded, everyway unscientific : 
yet in that very strictness and domestic solitude 
might there not lie the root of deeper earnestness, of 
the stem from which all noble fruit must grow? 
Above all, how unskilful soever, it was loving, it was 
well-meant, honest ; whereby every deficiency was 
helped. My kind Mother, for as such I must ever 
love the good Gretchen, did me one altogether in- 
valuable service : she taught me, less indeed by word 
than by act and daily reverent look and habitude, her 
own simple version of the Christian Faith. Andreas 
too attended Church ; yet more like a parade-duty, 
for which he in the other world expected pay with 
arrears, — as, I trust, he has received; but my 



chap. in. PEDAGOGY. 105 

Mother, with a true woman's heart, and fine though 
uncultivated sense, was in the strictest acceptation 
Religious. How indestructibly the Good grows, and 
propagates itself, even among the weedy entangle- 
ments of Evil ! The highest whom I knew on Earth 
I here saw bowed down, with awe unspeakable, 
before a Higher in Heaven : such things, especially 
in infancy, reach inwards to the very core of your 
being ; mysteriously does a Holy of Holies build 
itself into visibility in the mysterious deeps ; and 
Reverence, the divinestin man, springs forth undying 
from its mean envelopment of Fear. Wouldst thou 
rather be a peasant's son that knew, were it never so 
rudely, there was a God in Heaven and in Man ; or a 
duke's son that only knew there were two-and-thirty 
quarters on the family-coach ? " 

To which last question we must answer : Beware, 
O Teufelsdrockh, of spiritual pride ! 



CHAPTER III. 

PEDAGOGY. 

Hitherto we see young Gneschen, in his indivis- 
ible case of yellow serge, borne forward mostly on 
the arms of kind Nature alone ; seated, indeed, and 
much to his mind, in the terrestrial workshop, but 
(except his soft hazel eyes, which we doubt not 
already gleamed with a still intelligence) called upon 
for little voluntary movement there. Hitherto, 
accordingly, his aspect is rather generic, that of an 



106 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

incipient Philosopher and Poet in the abstract ; per- 
haps it would puzzle Herr Heuschrecke himself to 
say wherein the special Doctrine of Clothes is as yet 
foreshadowed or betokened. For with Gneschen, as 
with others, the Man may indeed stand pictured in 
the Boy (at least all the pigments are there) ; yet 
only some half of the Man stands in the Child, or 
young Boy, namely, his Passive endowment, not his 
Active. The more impatient are we to discover what 
figure he cuts in this latter capacity ; how, when, to 
use his own words, " he understands the tools a little, 
and can handle this or that,"' 1 he will proceed to 
handle it. 

Here, however, may be the place to state that, in 
much of our Philosopher's history, there is something 
of an almost Hindoo character : nay perhaps in that 
so well-fostered and everyway excellent "Passivity" 
of his, which, with no free development of the antag- 
onist Activity, distinguished his childhood, we may 
detect the rudiments of much that, in after days, and 
still in these present days, astonishes the world. For 
the shallow-sighted, Teufelsdrockh is oftenest a man 
without Activity of any kind, a No-man ; for the deep- 
sighted, again, a man with Activity almost supera- 
bundant, yet so spiritual, close-hidden, enigmatic, 
that no mortal can foresee its explosions, or even when 
it has exploded, so much as ascertain its significance. 
A dangerous, difficult temper for the modern 
European ; above all, disadvantageous in the hero of 
a Biography ! Now as heretofore it will behove the 
Editor of these pages, were it never so unsuccessfully, 
to do his endeavor. 



chap. in. PEDAGOGY. 107 

Among the earliest tools of any complicacy which 
a man, especially a man of letters, gets to handle, 
are his Class-books. On this portion of his History, 
Teufelsdrockh looks down professedly as indifferent. 
Reading he " cannot remember ever to have learned ; " 
so perhaps had it by nature. He says generally: 
" Of the insignificant portion of my Education, which 
depended on Schools, there need almost no notice be 
taken. I learned what others learn ; and kept it 
stored-by in a corner of my head, seeing as yet no 
manner of use in it. My Schoolmaster, a downbent, 
brokenhearted, underfoot martyr, as others of that 
guild are, did little for me, except discover that he 
could do little : he, good soul, pronounced me a 
genius, fit for the learned professions ; and that I 
must be sent to the Gymnasium, and one day to the 
University. Meanwhile, what printed thing soever I 
could meet with I read. My very copper pocket- 
money I laid-out on stall-literature; which, as it ac- 
cumulated, I with my own hands sewed into volumes. 
By this means was the young head furnished with a 
considerable miscellany of things and shadows of 
things : History in authentic fragments lay mingled 
with Fabulous chimeras, wherein also was reality ; 
and the whole not as dead stuff, but as living pabu- 
lum, tolerably nutritive for a mind as yet so peptic. 1 ' 

That the Entepfuhl Schoolmaster judged well, we 
now know. Indeed, already in the youthful Gneschen, 
with all his outward stillness, there may have been 
manifest an inward vivacity that promised much ; 
symptoms of a spirit singularly open, thoughtful, 
almost poetical. Thus, to say nothing of his Suppers 



108 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

on the Orchard-wall, and other phenomena of that 
earlier period, have many readers of these pages 
stumbled, in their twelfth year, on such reflections as 
the following? " It struck me much, as I sat by the 
Kuhbach, one silent noontide, and watched it flowing, 
gurgling, to think how this same streamlet had flowed 
and gurgled, through all changes of weather and 
of fortune, from beyond the earliest date of History. 
Yes, probably on the morning when Joshua forded 
Jordan ; even as at the midday when Caesar, doubt- 
less with difficulty, swam the Nile, yet kept his Com- 
mentaries dry, — this little Kuhbach, assiduous as 
Tiber, Eurotas or Siloa, was murmuring on across 
the wilderness, as yet unnamed, unseen : here, too, 
as in the Euphrates and the Ganges, is a vein or 
veinlet of the grand World-circulation of Waters, 
which, with its atmospheric arteries, has lasted and 
lasts simply with the World. Thou fool ! Nature 
alone is antique, and the oldest art a mushroom ; 
that idle crag thou sittest on is six-thousand years of 
age." In which little thought, as in a little fountain, 
may there not lie the beginning of those well-nigh 
unutterable meditations on the grandeur and mystery 
of Time, and its relation to Eternity, which play 
such a part in this Philosophy of Clothes ? 

Over his Gymnasic and Academic years the Pro- 
fessor by no means lingers so lyrical and joyful as 
over his childhood. Green sunny tracts there are 
still ; but intersected by bitter rivulets of tears, here 
and there stagnating into sour marshes of discontent. 
"With my first view of the Hinterschlag Gymna- 
sium, 1 - writes he, " my evil days began. Well do I still 



chap. in. PEDAGOGY. 109 

remember the red sunny Whitsuntide morning, when, 
trotting full of hope by the side of Father Andreas, I 
entered the main street of the place, and saw its 
steeple-clock (then striking Eight) and Schuldthurm 
(Jail) , and the aproned or disaproned Burghers mov- 
ing-in to breakfast : a little dog, in mad terror, was 
rushing past ; for some human imps had tied a tin- 
kettle to its tail; thus did the agonized creature, 
loud-jingling, career through the whole length of the 
Borough, and become notable enough. Fit emblem 
of many a Conquering Hero, to whom Fate (wedding 
Fantasy to Sense, as it often elsewhere does) has 
malignantly appended a tin-kettle of Ambition, to 
chase him on; which the faster he runs, urges him 
the faster, the more loudly and more foolishly ! Fit 
emblem also of much that awaited myself, in that 
mischievous Den ; as in the World, whereof it was a 
portion and epitome ! 

"Alas, the kind beech-rows of Entepfuhl were 
hidden in the distance : I was among strangers, 
harshly, at best indifferently, disposed towards me ; 
the young heart felt, for the first time, quite orphaned 
and alone." His schoolfellows, as is usual, perse- 
cuted him: "They were Boys, 11 he says, "mostly 
rude Boys, and obeyed the impulse of rude Nature, 
which bids the deer-herd fall upon any stricken hart, 
the duck-flock put to death any broken-winged 
brother or sister, and on all hands the strong tyran- 
nize over the weak. 1 ' He admits, that though " per- 
haps in an unusual degree morally courageous, he 
succeeded ill in battle, and would fain have avoided 
it ; a result, as would appear, owing less to his small 



no SARTOR KESARTUS. book iu 

personal stature (for in passionate seasons he was 
"incredibly nimble "), than to his "virtuous princi- 
ples : " " if it was disgraceful to be beaten, 11 says he, 
" it was only a shade less disgraceful to have so much 
as fought ; thus was I drawn two ways at once, and 
m this important element of school-history, the war- 
element, had little but sorrow."' 1 On the whole, that 
same excellent "Passivity, 11 so notable in Teufels- 
drockrTs childhood, is here visibly enough again get- 
ting nourishment. " He wept often ; indeed to such 
a degree that he was nicknamed Der Weinende (the 
Tearful), which epithet, till towards his thirteenth 
year, was indeed not quite unmerited. Only at rare 
intervals did the young soul burst-forth into fire-eyed 
rage, and, with a stormfulness {Ungestimi) under 
which the boldest quailed, assert that he too had 
Rights of Man, or at least of Mankin. 11 In all which, 
who does not discern a fine flower-tree and cinnamon- 
tree ( of genius) nigh choked among pumpkins, reed- 
grass and ignoble shrubs ; and forced if it would live, 
to struggle upwards only, and not outwards ; into a 
height quite sickly, and disproportioned to its breadth ? 

We find, moreover, that his Greek and Latin were 

- 
" mechanically " taught ; Hebrew scarce even mechan- 
ically ; much else which they called History, Cosmog- 
raphy, Philosophy, and so forth, no better than not 
at all. So that, except inasmuch as Nature was still 
busy ; and he himself " went about, as was of old his 
wont, among the Craftsmen^ workshops, there learn- 
ing many things " ; and farther lighted on some 
small store of curious reading, in Hans Wachtel the 
Coopers house, where he lodged, — his time, it 



chap. in. PEDAGOGY. in 

would appear, was utterly wasted. Which facts the 
Professor has not yet learned to look upon with any 
contentment. Indeed, throughout the whole of this 
Bag Scorpio, where we now are, and often in the fol- 
lowing Bag, he shows himself unusually animated on 
the matter of Education, and not without some touch 
of what we might presume to be anger. 

"My Teachers,"' says he, "were hide-bound 
Pedants, without knowledge of man's nature, or of 
boy's ; or of aught save their lexicons and quarterly 
account-books. Innumerable dead Vocables (no 
dead Language, for they themselves knew no Lan- 
guage) they crammed into us, and called it fostering 
the growth of mind. How can an inanimate, mechan- 
ical Gerundgrinder, the like of whom will, in a sub- 
sequent century, be manufactured at Nurnberg out of 
wood and leather, foster the growth of anything ; 
much more of Mind, which grows, not like a vegeta- 
ble (by having its roots littered with etymological 
compost), but like a spirit, by mysterious contact of 
Spirit ; Thought kindling itself at the fire of living 
Thought? How shall he give kindling, in whose 
own inward man there is no live coal, but all is 
burnt-out to a dead grammatical cinder? The 
Hinterschlag Professors knew syntax enough ; and 
of the human soul thus much : that it had a faculty 
called Memory, and could be acted-on through the 
muscular integument by appliance of birch-rods. 

"Alas, so is it everywhere, so will it ever be; till 
the Hodman is discharged, or reduced to hodbear- 
ing; and an Architect is hired, and on all hands 
fitly encouraged : till communities and individuals 



H2 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

discover, not without surprise, that fashioning the 
souls of a generation by Knowledge can rank on a 
level with blowing their bodies to pieces by Gun- 
powder ; that with Generals and Fieldmarshals for 
killing, there should be world-honored Dignitaries, 
and were it possible, true God-ordained Priests, for 
teaching. But as yet, though the Soldier wears 
openly, and even parades, his butchering-tool, no- 
where, far as I have travelled, did the Schoolmaster 
make show of his instructing-tool : nay, were he to 
walk abroad with birch girt on thigh, as if he there- 
from expected honor, would there not, among the 
idler class, perhaps a certain levity be excited ?" 

In the third year of this Gymnasic period, Father 
Andreas seems to have died : the young Scholar, 
otherwise so maltreated, saw himself for the first 
time clad outwardly in sables, and inwardly in quite 
inexpressible melancholy. "The dark bottomless 
Abyss, that lies under our feet, had yawned open; 
the pale, kingdoms of Death, with all their innumera- 
ble silent nations and generations, stood before him ; 
the inexorable word, Never ! now first showed its 
meaning. My Mother wept, and her sorrow got 
vent ; but in my heart there lay a whole lake of tears, 
pent-up in silent desolation. Nevertheless the un- 
worn Spirit is strong ; Life is so healthful that it 
even finds nourishment in Death : these stern experi- 
ences, planted down by Memory in my Imagination, 
rose there to a whole cypress-forest, sad but beauti- 
ful ; waving, with not unmelodious sighs, in dark 
luxuriance, in the hottest sunshine, through long 
years of youth: — as in manhood also it does, and 



chap. in. PEDAGOGY. 113 

will do ; for I have now pitched my tent under a 
Cypress-tree ; the Tomb is now my inexpugnable 
Fortress, ever close by the gate of which I look 
upon the hostile armaments, and pains and penalties 
of tyrannous Life placidly enough, and listen to its 
loudest threatenings with a still smile. O ye loved 
ones, that already sleep in the noiseless Bed of Rest, 
whom in life I could only weep for and never help ; 
and ye, who wide-scattered still toil lonely in the 
monster-bearing Desert, dyeing the flinty ground 
with your blood, — yet a little while, and we shall all 
meet there, and our Mother's bosom will screen us 
all ; and Oppression's harness, and Sorrow's fire- 
whip, and all the Gehenna Bailiffs that patrol and 
inhabit ever- vexed Time, cannot thenceforth harm 
us any more ! " 

Close by which rather beautiful apostrophe, lies a 
labored Character of the deceased Andreas Futteral ; 
of his natural ability, his deserts in life (as Prussian 
Sergeant) ; with long historical inquiries into the 
genealogy of the Futteral Family, here traced back as 
far as Henry the Fowler : the whole of which we pass 
over, not without astonishment. It only concerns us 
to add, that now was the time when Mother Gretchen 
revealed to her foster-son that he was not at all of 
this kindred ; or indeed of any kindred, having come 
into historical existence in the way already known 
to us. "Thus was I doubly orphaned," says he; 
"bereft not only of Possession, but even of Remem- 
brance. Sorrow and Wonder, here suddenly united, 
could not but produce abundant fruit. Such a dis- 
closure, in such a season, struck its roots through my 



114 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

whole nature : ever till the years of mature man- 
hood, it mingled with my whole thoughts, was as 
the stem whereon all my day-dreams and night- 
dreams grew. A certain poetic elevation, yet also a 
corresponding civic depression, it naturally imparted : 
I was like no other; in which fixed-idea, leading 
sometimes to highest, and oftener to frightfullest 
results, may there not lie the first spring of tenden- 
cies, which in my Life have become remarkable 
enough? As in birth, so in action, speculation, 
and social position, my fellows are perhaps not 
numerous." 

In the Bag Sagittarius, as we at length discover, 
Teufelsdrockh has become a University man ; though 
how, when, or of what quality, will nowhere disclose 
itself with the smallest certainty. Few things, in 
the way of confusion and capricious indistinctness, 
can now surprise our readers ; not even the total 
want of dates, almost without parallel in a Biographi- 
cal work. So enigmatic, so chaotic we have always 
found, and must always look to find, these scattered 
Leaves. In Sagittarius , however, Teufelsdrockh 
begins to show himself even more than usually Sibyl- 
line : fragments of all sorts ; scraps of regular Memoir, 
College-Exercises, Programmes, Professional Testi- 
moniums, Milkscores, torn Billets, sometimes to ap- 
pearance of an amatory cast ; all blown together as if 
by merest chance, henceforth bewilder the sane Histo- 
rian. To combine any picture of these University, 
and the subsequent, years ; much more, to decipher 
therein any illustrative primordial elements of the 



chap. in. PEDAGOGY. 115 

Clothes-Philosophy, becomes such a problem as the 
reader may imagine. 

So much we can see ; darkly, as through the foli- 
age of some wavering thicket : a youth of no com- 
mon endowment, who has passed happily through 
Childhood, less happily yet still vigorously through 
Boyhood, now at length perfect in " dead vocables," 
and set down, as he hopes, by the living Fountain, 
there to superadd Ideas and Capabilities. From such 
Fountain he draws, diligently, thirstily, yet never or 
seldom with his whole heart, for the water nowise 
suits his palate ; discouragements, entanglements, 
aberrations are discoverable or supposable. Nor 
perhaps are even pecuniary distresses wanting ; for 
"the good Gretchen, who in spite of advices from 
not disinterested relatives has sent him hither, must 
after a time withdraw her willing but too feeble 
hand." Nevertheless in an atmosphere of Poverty 
and manifold Chagrin, the Humor of that young 
Soul, what character is in him, first decisively reveals 
itself; and, like strong sunshine in weeping skies, 
gives out variety of colors, some of which are pris- 
matic. Thus, with the aid of Time and of what 
Time brings, has the stripling Diogenes' Teufels- 
drockh waxed into manly stature ; and into so ques- 
tionable an aspect, that we ask with new eagerness, 
How he specially came by it, and regret anew that 
there is no more explicit answer. Certain of the in- 
telligible and partially significant fragments, which 
are few in number, shall be extracted from that Limbo 
of a Paper-bag and presented with the usual 
preparation. 



n6 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

As if, in the Bag Scorpio, Teufelsdrockh had not 
already expectorated his antipedagogic spleen ; as if, 
from the name Sagittarius, he had thought himself 
called upon to shoot arrows, we here again fall-in with 
such matter as this: "The University where I was 
educated still stands vivid enough in my remembrance, 
and I know its name well; which name, however, 1, 
from tenderness to existing interests and persons, 
shall in nowise divulge. It is my painful duty to say 
that, out of England and Spain, ours was the worst 
of all hitherto discovered Universities. This is in- 
deed a time when right Education is, as nearly as may 
be, impossible : however, in degrees of wrongness there 
is no limit : nay, I can conceive a worse system 
than that of the Nameless itself; as poisoned victual 
may be worse than absolute hunger. 

" It is written, When the blind lead the blind, both 
shall fall into the ditch : wherefore, in such circum- 
stances, may it not sometimes be safer, if both leader 
and lead simply — sit still ? Had you, anywhere in 
Crim Tartary, walled-in a square enclosure ; furnished 
it with a small, ill-chosen Library; and then turned 
loose into it eleven-hundred Christian striplings, to 
tumble about as they listed, from three to seven 
years : certain persons, under the title of Professors, 
being stationed at the gates, to declare aloud that it 
was a University, and exact considerable admission- 
fees, — you had, not indeed in mechanical structure, 
yet in spirit and result, some imperfect resemblance 
of our High Seminary. I say, imperfect ; for if our 
mechanical structure was quite other, so neither was 
our result altogether the same : unhappily, we were 



chap. in. PEDAGOGY. 117 

not in Crim Tartary, but in a corrupt European city, 
full of smoke and sin ; moreover, in the middle of a 
Public, which, without far costlier apparatus than 
that of the Square Enclosure, and Declaration aloud, 
you could not be sure of gulling. 

"Gullible, however, by fit apparatus, all Publics are ; 
and gulled, with the most surprising profit. Towards 
anything like a Statistics of Imposture, indeed, little 
as yet has been done : with a strange indifference, 
our Economists, nigh buried under Tables for minor 
Branches of Industry, have altogether overlooked 
the grand all-overtopping Hypocrisy Branch ; as if 
our whole arts of Puffery, of Quackery, Priestcraft, 
Kingcraft, and the innumerable other crafts and 
mysteries of that genus, had not ranked in Produc- 
tive Industry at all ! Can any one, for example, so 
much as say, What moneys, in Literature and Shoe- 
blacking, are realized by actual Instruction and actual 
jet Polish ; what by fictitious-persuasive Proclamation 
of such ; specifying, in distinct items, the distribu- 
tions, circulations, disbursements, incomings of said 
moneys, with the smallest approach to accuracy ? 
But to ask, How far, in all the several infinitely-com- 
plected departments of social business, in govern- 
ment, education, in manual, commercial, intellectual 
fabrication of every sort, man's Want is supplied by 
true Ware ; how far by the mere Appearance of true 
Ware : — in other words, To what extent, by 
what methods, with what effects, in various times and 
countries, Deception takes the place of wages of Per- 
formance : here truly is an Inquiry big with results 
for the future time, but to which hitherto only the 



n8 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

vaguest answer can be given. If for the present, in 
our Europe, we estimate the ratio of Ware to Appear- 
ance of Ware so high even as at One to a Hundred 
(which, considering the Wages of a Pope, Russian 
Autocrat, or English Game-Preserver, is probably 
not far from the mark), — what almost prodigious 
saving may there not be anticipated, as the Statistics 
of Imposture advances, and so the manufacturing of 
Shams (that of Realities rising into clearer and clearer 
distinction therefrom) gradually declines, and at 
length becomes all but wholly unnecessary ! 

" This for the coming golden ages. What I had 
to remark, for the present brazen one, is, that in sev- 
eral provinces, as in Education, Polity, Religion, 
where so much is wanted and indispensable, and so 
little can as yet be furnished, probably Imposture is 
of sanative, anodyne nature, and man's Gullibility 
not his worst blessing. Suppose your sinews of war 
quite broken ; I mean your military chest insolvent, 
forage all but exhausted ; and that the whole army is 
about to mutiny, disband, and cut your and each 
other's throat, — then were it not well could you, as if 
by miracle, pay them in any sort of fairy-money, feed 
them on coagulated water, or mere imagination of 
meat ; whereby, till the real supply came up, they 
might be kept together and quiet ? Such perhaps 
was the aim of Nature, who does nothing without 
aim, in furnishing her favorite, Man, with this his 
so omnipotent or rather omnipatient Talent of being 
Gulled. 

"How beautifully it works, with a little mechan- 
ism ; nay, almost makes mechanism for itself ! These 



chap. in. PEDAGOGY. 119 

Professors in the Nameless lived with ease, with 
safety, by a mere Reputation, constructed in past 
times, and then too with no great effort, by quite 
another class of persons. Which Reputation, like a 
strong, brisk-going undershot wheel, sunk into the 
general current, bade fair, with only a little annual 
repainting on their part, to hold long together, and 
of its own accord assiduously grind for them. Happy 
that it was so, for the Millers ! They themselves 
needed not to work ; their attempts at working, at 
what they called Educating, now when I look back 
on it, fill me with a certain mute admiration. 

" Besides all this, we boasted ourselves a Rational 
University ; in the highest degree hostile to Mysti- 
cism ; thus was the young vacant mind furnished 
with much talk about Progress of the Species, Dark 
Ages, Prejudice, and the like ; so that all were 
quickly enough blown out into a state of windy argu- 
mentativeness ; whereby the better sort had soon to 
end in sick, impotent Scepticism ; the worser sort 
explode (crepiren) in finished Self-conceit, and to all 
spiritual intents become dead. — But this too is portion 
of mankind's lot. If our era is the Era of Unbelief, 
why murmur under it ; is there not a better coming, 
nay come ? As in long-drawn systole and long-drawn 
diastole, must the period of Faith alternate with the 
period of Denial ; must the vernal growth, the sum- 
mer luxuriance of all Opinions, Spiritual Represen- 
tations and Creations, be followed by, and again 
follow, the autumnal decay, the winter dissolution. 
For man lives in Time, has his whole earthly being, 
endeavor and destiny shaped for him by Time : 



120 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

only in the transitory Time-Symbol is the ever-mo- 
tionless Eternity we stand on made manifest. And 
yet, in such winter-seasons of Denial, it is for the 
nobler-minded perhaps a comparative misery to have 
been born, and to be awake and work ; and for the 
duller a felicity, if, like hibernating animals, safe- 
lodged in some Salamanca University, or Sybaris 
City, or other superstitious or voluptuous Castle of 
Indolence, they can slumber-through, in stupid 
dreams, and only awaken when the loud-roaring 
hailstorms have all done their work, and to our 
prayers and martyrdoms the new Spring has been 
vouchsafed." 

That in the environment, here mysteriously enough 
shadowed forth, Teufelsdrockh must have felt ill at 
ease, cannot be doubtful. " The hungry young," he 
says, "looked up to their spiritual Nurses; and, for 
food, were bidden eat the east-wind. What vain 
jargon of controversial Metaphysic, Etymology, and 
mechanical Manipulation falsely named Science, was 
current there, I indeed learned, better perhaps than 
the most. Among eleven-hundred Christian youths, 
there will not be wanting some eleven eager to learn. 
By collision with such, a certain warmth, a certain 
polish was communicated ; by instinct and happy ac- 
cident, I took less to rioting {renommireii), than to 
thinking and reading, which latter also I was free 
to do. Nay from the chaos of that Library, I suc- 
ceeded in fishing-up more books perhaps than had 
been known to the very keepers thereof. The- foun- 
dation of a Literary Life was hereby laid : I learned, 
on my own strength, to read fluently in almost all 



chap. in. PEDAGOGY. 12 1 

cultivated languages, on almost all subjects and sci- 
ences ; farther, as man is ever the prime object to 
man, already it was my favorite employment to read 
character in speculation, and from the Writing to 
construe the Writer. A certain groundplan of Hu- 
man Nature and Life began to fashion itself in me ; 
wondrous enough, now when I look back on it ; for 
my whole Universe, physical and spiritual, was as yet 
a Machine ! However, such a conscious, recognized 
groundplan, the truest I had, was beginning to be 
there, and by additional experiments might be cor- 
rected and indefinitely extended.'" 

Thus from poverty does the strong educe nobler 
wealth ; thus in the destitution of the wild desert 
does our young Ishmael acquire for himself the highest 
of all possessions, that of Self-help. Nevertheless a 
desert this was, waste, and howling with savage 
monsters. Teufelsdrockh gives us long details of 
his "fever-paroxysms of Doubt ;" his Inquiries con- 
cerning Miracles, and the Evidences of religious 
Faith ; and how "in the silent night-watches, still 
darker in his heart than over sky and earth, he has 
cast himself before the All-seeing, and with audible 
prayers cried vehemently for Light, for deliverance 
from Death and the Grave. Not till after long 
years, and unspeakable agonies, did the believing 
heart surrender ; sink into spell-bound sleep, under 
the nightmare, Unbelief; and, in this hag-ridden 
dream, mistake God's fair living world for a pallid, 
vacant Hades and extinct Pandemonium. But 
through such Purgatory pain," continues he, " it 
is appointed us to pass ; first must the dead Letter 



122 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

of Religion own itself dead, and drop piecemeal into 
dust, if the living Spirit of Religion, freed from this 
its charnel-house, is to arise on us, newborn of 
Heaven, and with new healing under its wings. 1 ' 

To which Purgatory pains, seemingly severe 
enough, if we add a liberal measure of Earthly dis- 
tresses, want of practical guidance, want of sympathy, 
want of money, want of hope ; and all this in the 
fervid season of youth, so exaggerated in imagining, 
so boundless in desires, yet here so poor in means, 
— do we not see a strong incipient spirit oppressed 
and overloaded from without and from within ; the 
fire of genius struggling-up among fuel-wood of the 
greenest, and as yet with more of bitter vapor than 
of clear flame ? 

From various fragments of Letters and other 
documentary scraps, it is to be inferred that Teufels- 
drockh, isolated, shy, retiring as he was, had not 
altogether escaped notice : certain established men 
are aware of his existence ; and, if stretching-out no 
helpful hand, have at least their eyes on him. He 
appears, though in dreary enough humor, to be ad- 
dressing himself to the Profession of Law; — where- 
of, indeed, the world has since seen him a public 
graduate. But omitting these broken, unsatisfactory 
thrums of Economical relation, let us present rather 
the following small thread of Moral relation ; and 
therewith, the reader for himself weaving it in at the 
right place, conclude our dim arras-picture of these 
University years. 

" Here also it was that I formed acquaintance 
with Herr Towgood, or, as it" is perhaps better 



chap. in. PEDAGOGY. 123 

written, Herr Toughgut ; a young person of quality 
(von Adel), from the interior parts of England. He 
stood connected, by blood and hospitality, with the 
Counts von Zahdarm, in this quarter of Germany ; to 
which noble Family I likewise was, by his means, 
with all friendliness, brought near. Towgood had 
a fair talent, unspeakably ill-cultivated ; with con- 
siderable humor of character : and, bating his total 
ignorance, for he knew nothing except Boxing and 
a little Grammar, showed less of that aristocratic 
impassivity, and silent fury, than for most part be- 
longs to Travellers of his nation. To him I owe 
my first practical knowledge of the English and 
their ways ; perhaps also something of the partiality 
with which I have ever since regarded that singular 
people. Towgood was not without an eye, could he 
have come at any light. Invited doubtless by the 
presence of the Zahdarm Family, he had travelled 
hither, in the almost frantic hope of perfecting his 
studies ; he, whose studies had as yet been those of 
infancy, hither to a University where so much as the 
notion of perfection, not to say the effort after it, no 
longer existed ! Often we would condole over the 
hard destiny of the Young in this era : how, after all 
our toil, we were to be turned-out into the world, 
with beards on our chins indeed, but with few other 
attributes of manhood ; no existing thing that we 
were trained to Act on, nothing that we could so 
much as Believe. ' How has our head on the out- 
side a polished Hat, 1 would Towgood exclaim, ' and 
in the inside Vacancy, or a froth of Vocables and 
Attorney-Logic ! At a small cost men are educated 



124 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

to make leather into shoes ; but at a great cost, what 
am I educated to make ? By Heaven, Brother ! what I 
have already eaten and worn, as I came thus far, 
would endow a considerable Hospital of Incurables.' 
— ' Man, indeed, 1 I would answer, ' has a Digestive 
Faculty, which must.be kept working, were it even 
partly by stealth. But as for our Mis-education, 
make not bad worse ; waste not the time yet ours, 
in trampling on thistles because they have yielded 
us no figs. Frisch zu, Bruderl Here are Books, 
and we have brains to read them ; here is a whole 
Earth and a whole Heaven, and we have eyes to 
look on them : Frisch zu I ' 

"Often also our talk was gay; not without bril- 
liancy, and even fire. We looked-out on Life, with 
its strange scaffolding, where all at once harlequins 
dance, and men are beheaded and quartered : motley, 
not unterrific was the aspect ; but we looked on it 
like braves youths. For myself, these were perhaps 
my most genial hours. Towards this young warm- 
hearted, strongheaded and wrongheaded Herr Tow- 
good I was even near experiencing the now obsolete 
sentiment of Friendship. Yes, foolish Heathen that 
I was, I felt that, under certains conditions, I could 
have loved this man, and taken him to my bosom, 
and been his brother once and always. By degrees, 
however, I understood the new time, and its wants. 
If man's Soul is indeed, as in the Finnish Language, 
and Utilitarian Philosophy, a kind of Stomach, what 
else is the true meaning of Spiritual Union but an 
Eating together ? Thus we, instead of Friends, are 
Dinner-guests ; and here as elsewhere have cast 
away chimeras." 



chap. iv. GETTING UNDER WAY. 125 

So ends, abruptly as is usual, and enigmatically, 
this little incipient romance. What henceforth be- 
comes of the brave Herr Towgood, or Toughgut? 
He has dived-under, in the Autobiographical Chaos, 
and swims we see not where. Does any reader " in 
the interior parts of England " know of such a man ? 



CHAPTER IV. 

GETTING UNDER WAY. 

" Thus nevertheless," writes our Autobiographer, 
apparently as quitting College, "was there realized 
Somewhat; namely, I, Diogenes Teufelsdrockh : a 
visible Temporary Figure (Zeitbild) , occupying some 
cubic feet of Space, and containing within it Forces 
both physical and spiritual ; hopes, passions, 
thoughts ; the whole wondrous furniture, in more or 
less perfection, belonging to that mystery, a Man. 
Capabilities there were in me to give battle, in some 
small degree, against the great Empire of Darkness : 
does not the very Ditcher and Delver, with his spade, 
extinguish many a thistle and puddle ; and so leave 
a little Order, where he found the opposite ? Nay, 
your very Daymoth has capabilities in this kind ; 
and ever organizes something (into its own Body, 
if no otherwise), which was before Inorganic; and 
of mute dead air makes living music, though only 
of the faintest, by humming. 

" How much more, one whose capabilities are 
spiritual ; who has learned, or begun learning, the 



126 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

grand thaumaturgic art of Thought ! Thaumaturgic 
I name it ; for hitherto all Miracles have been wrought 
thereby, and henceforth innumerable will be wrought ; 
whereof we, even in these days, witness some. Of 
the Poet's and Prophet's inspired Message, and how 
it makes and unmakes whole worlds, I shall forbear 
mention : but cannot the dullest hear Steam-engines 
clanking around him? Has he not seen the Scottish 
Brassmith's Idea (and this but a mechanical one) 
travelling on fire-wings round the Cape, and across 
two Oceans ; and stronger than any other Enchan- 
ter's Familiar, on all hands unweariedly fetching and 
carrying : at home, not only weaving Cloth ; but 
rapidly enough overturning the whole old system of 
Society ; and, for Feudalism and Preservation of the 
Game, preparing us, by indirect but sure methods, 
Industrialism and the Government of the Wisest? 
Truly a Thinking Man is the worst enemy the 
Prince of Darkness can have ; every time such a one 
announces himself, I doubt not, there runs a shudder 
through the Nether Empire ; and new Emissaries 
are trained, with new tactics, to, if possible, entrap 
him, and hoodwink and handcuff him. 

" With such high vocation had I too, as denizen of 
the Universe, been called. Unhappy it is, however, 
that though born to the amplest Sovereignty, in this 
way, with no less than sovereign right of Peace and 
War against the Time-Prince (Zeitf first) , or Devil, 
and all his Dominions, your coronation-ceremony 
costs such trouble, your sceptre is so difficult to get 
at, or even to get eye on ! " 

By which last wiredrawn similitude does Teufels- 



chap. iv. GETTING UNDER WAY. 127 

drockh mean no more than that young men find obsta- 
cles in what we call "getting under way ? " " Not what 
I Have," continues he, " but what I Do is my King- 
dom. To each is given a certain inward Talent, a cer- 
tain outward Environment of Fortune ; to each, by 
wisest combination of these two, a certain maximum 
of Capability. But the hardest problem were ever this 
first : To find by study of yourself, and of the ground 
you stand on, what your combined inward and out- 
ward Capability specially is. For, alas, our young 
soul is all budding with Capabilities, and we see not 
yet which is the main and true one. Always too the 
new man is in a new time, under new conditions ; 
his course can be the facsimile of no prior one, but 
is by its nature original. And then how seldom will 
the outward Capability fit the inward : though talented 
wonderfully enough, we are poor, unfriended, dyspep- 
tical, bashful ; nay what is worse than all, we are 
foolish. Thus, in a whole imbroglio of Capabilities, 
we go stupidly groping about, to grope which is ours, 
and often clutch the wrong one : in this mad work 
must several years of our small term be spent, till 
the purblind Youth, by practice, acquire notions of 
distance, and become a seeing Man. Nay, many so 
spend their whole term, and in ever-new expectation, 
ever-new disappointment, shift from enterprise to 
enterprise, and from side to side: till at length, as 
exasperated striplings of threescore-and-ten, they 
shift into their last enterprise, that of getting buried. 
" Such, since the most of us are too ophthalmic, 
would be the general fate ; were it not that one thing 
saves us : our Hunger. For on this ground, as the 



128 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

prompt nature of Hunger is well known, must a 
prompt choice be made : hence have we, with wise 
foresight, Indentures and Apprenticeships for our 
irrational young ; whereby, in due season, the vague 
universality of a Man shall find himself ready-moulded 
into a specific Craftsman ; and so thenceforth work, 
with much or with little waste of Capability as it may 
be ; yet not with the worst waste, that of time. Nay 
even in matters spiritual, since the spiritual artist too 
is born blind, and does not, like certain other crea- 
tures, receive sight in nine days, but far later, some- 
times never, — is it not well that there should be 
what we call Professions, or Bread-studies (JBrod- 
zwecke), preappointed us? Here, circling like the gin- 
horse, for whom partial or total blindness is no evil, 
the Bread-artist can travel contentedly round and 
round, still fancying that it is forward and forward ; 
and realize much : for himself victual ; for the world 
an additional horse's power in the grand corn-mill or 
hemp-mill of Economic Society. For me too had 
such a leading-string been provided ; only that it 
proved a neck-halter, and had nigh throttled me, till 
I broke it off. Then, in the words of Ancient Pistol, 
did the world generally become mine oyster, which 
I, by strength or cunning, was to open, as I would 
and could. Almost had I deceased {fast war ich 
umgekommen) , so obstinately did it continue shut. 11 

We see here, significantly foreshadowed, the spirit 
of much that was to befall our Autobiographer ; the 
historical embodiment of which, as it painfully takes 
shape in his Life, lies scattered, in dim disastrous 
details, through this Bag Pisces, and those that fol- 



chap. iv. GETTING UNDER WAY. 129 

low. A young man of high talent, and high though 
still temper, like a young mettled colt, " breaks-off 
his neck-halter," and bounds forth, from his peculiar 
manger, into the wide world ; which, alas, he finds 
all rigorously fenced-in. Richest clover-fields tempt 
his eye ; but to him they are forbidden pasture : 
either pining in progressive starvation, he must stand ; 
or, in mad exasperation, must rush to and fro, leap- 
ing against sheer stone-walls, which he cannot leap 
over, which only lacerate and lame him ; till at last, 
after thousand attempts and endurances, he, as if by 
miracle, clears his way ; not indeed into luxuriant 
and luxurious clover, yet into a certain bosky wilder- 
ness where existence is still possible, and Freedom, 
though waited on by Scarcity, is not without sweet- 
ness. In a word, Teufelsdrockh having thrown-up 
his legal Profession, finds himself without landmark 
of outward guidance ; whereby his previous want of 
decided Belief, or inward guidance, is frightfully 
aggravated. Necessity urges him on ; Time will not 
stop, neither can he, a Son of Time ; wild passions 
without solacement, wild faculties without employ- 
ment, ever vex and agitate him. He too must enact 
that stern Monodrama, No Object and no Rest ; must 
front its successive destinies, work through to its 
catastrophe, and deduce therefrom what moral he 
can. 

Yet let us be just to him, let us admit that his 
" neck-halter" sat nowise easy on him; that he was 
in some degree forced to break it off. If we look at 
the young man's civic position, in this Nameless 
capital, as he emerges from its Nameless University, 



130 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

we can discern well that it was far from enviable. 
His first Law-Examination he has come through 
triumphantly ; and can even boast that the Examen 
Rigorosu7n need not have frightened him : but though 
he is hereby " an Auscultator of respectability," 
what avails it ? There is next to no employment to 
be had. Neither, for a youth without connections, is 
the process of Expectation very hopeful in itself; nor 
for one of his disposition much cheered from without. 
" My fellow Auscultators," he says, "were Auscul- 
tators : they dressed, and digested, and talked articu- 
late words ; other vitality showed they almost none. 
Small speculation in those eyes, that they did glare 
withal ! Sense neither for the high nor for the deep, 
nor for aught human or divine, save only for the 
faintest scent of coming Preferment." In which 
words, indicating a total estrangement on the part of 
Teufelsdrockh, may there not also lurk traces of a 
bitterness as from wounded vanity ? Doubtless these 
prosaic Auscultators may have sniffed at him, with 
his strange ways ; and tried to hate, and what was 
much more impossible, to despise him. Friendly 
communion, in any case, there could not be : already 
has the young Teufelsdrockh left the other young 
geese ; and swims apart, though as yet uncertain 
whether he himself is cygnet or gosling. 

Perhaps, too, what little employment he had was 
performed ill, at best unpleasantly. "Great practi- 
cal method and expertness " he may brag of; but is 
there not also great practical pride, though deep- 
hidden, only the deeper-seated ? So shy a man can 
never have been popular. We figure to ourselves, 



chap. iv. GETTING UNDER WAY. 131 

how in those days he may have played strange freaks 
with his independence, and so forth : do not his own 
words betoken as much? " Like a very young per- 
son, I imagined it was with Work alone, and not 
also with Folly and Sin, in myself and others, that I 
had been appointed to struggle." Be this as it may, 
his progress from the passive Auscultatorship, towards 
any active Assessorship, is evidently of the slowest. 
By degrees, those same established men, once par- 
tially inclined to patronize him, seem to withdraw 
their countenance, and give him up as "a man of 
genius :" against which procedure he, in these Papers, 
loudly protests. " As if," says he, " the higher did 
not presuppose the lower ; as if he who can fly into 
heaven, could not also walk post if he resolved on 
it ! But the world is an old woman, and mistakes any 
gilt farthing for a gold coin ; whereby being often 
cheated, she will thenceforth trust nothing but the 
common copper. 11 

How our winged sky-messenger, unaccepted as a 
terrestrial runner, contrived, in the mean while, to 
keep himself from flying skyward without return, is 
not too clear from these Documents. Good old 
Gretchen seems to have vanished from the scene, 
perhaps from the Earth ; other Horn of Plenty, or 
even of Parsimony, nowhere flows for him ; so that 
" the prompt nature of Hunger being well known, 11 
we are not without our anxiety. From private Tui- 
tion, in never so many languages and sciences, the 
aid derivable is small; neither, to use his own words, 
" does the young Adventurer hitherto suspect in 
himself any literary gift ; but at best earns bread- 



132 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

and-water wages, by his wide faculty of Translation. 
Nevertheless, 11 continues he, " that I subsisted is 
clear, for you find me even now alive. 1 ' Which fact, 
however, except upon the principle of our true-hearted, 
kind old Proverb, that "there is always life for a 
living one, 11 we must profess ourselves unable to 
explain. 

Certain Landlords 1 Bills, and other economic Docu- 
ments, bearing the mark of Settlement, indicate that 
he was not without money ; but, like an independent 
Hearth-holder, if not House-holder, paid his way. 
Here also occur, among many others, two little 
mutilated Notes, which perhaps throw light on his 
condition. The first has now no date, or writers 
name, but a huge Blot ; and runs to this effect : " The 
{Inkblot), tied-down by previous promise, cannot, 
except by best wishes, forward the Herr Teufels- 
drockh's views on the Assessorship in question ; and 
sees himself under the cruel necessity of forbearing, 
for the present, what were otherwise his duty and 
joy, to assist in opening the career for a man of 
genius, on whom far higher triumphs are yet waiting. 11 
The other is on gilt paper ; and interests us like a 
sort of epistolary mummy now dead, yet which once 
lived and beneficently worked. We give it in the 
original : ' ' Herr Teufelsdrockh wird von der Frau 
Grajin, auf Donnerstag, zimi ^Esthetischen Thee 
sctionstens eingeladen" 

Thus, in answer to a cry for solid pudding, where- 
of there is the most urgent need, comes, epigram- 
matically enough, the invitation to a wash of quite fluid 
^Esthetic Teal How Teufelsdrockh, now at actual 



chap. iv. GETTING UNDER WAY, 133 

handgrips with Destiny herself, may ha\ ^ con.ported 
himself among these Musical and Literary Dilettanti of 
both sexes, like a hungry lion invited to a feast of 
chicken-weed; we can only conjecture. Perhaps in 
expressive silence, and abstinence : otherwise if the 
lion, in such case, is to feast at all, it cannot be on 
the chicken-weed, but only on the chickens. For the 
rest, as this Frau Grafin dates from the Zahdarm 
House, she can be no other than the Countess and 
mistress of the same ; whose intellectual tendencies, 
and good-will to Teufelsdrb'ckh, whether on the foot- 
ing of Herr Towgood, or on his own footing, are 
hereby manifest. That some sort of relation, indeed, 
continued, for a time, to connect our Autobiographer, 
though perhaps feebly enough, with this noble 
House, we have elsewhere express evidence. Doubt- 
less, if he expected patronage, it was in vain ; 
enough for him if he here obtained occasional 
glimpses of the great world, from which we at one 
time fancied him to have been always excluded. 
" The Zahdarms," says he, " lived in the soft, sump- 
tuous garniture of Aristocracy ; whereto Literature 
and Art, attracted and attached from without, were 
to serve as the handsomest fringing. It was to the 
Gnadigen Frau (her Ladyship) that this latter 
improvement was due : assiduously she gathered, 
dextrously she fitted-on, what fringing was to be 
had ; lace or cobweb, as the place yielded/ 1 Was 
Teufelsdrockh also a fringe, of lace or cobweb ; or 
promising to be such? "With his Excellenz (the 
Count)," continues he, " I have more than once had 
the honor to converse ; chiefly on general affairs, 



134 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

and the aspect of the world, which he, though now 
past middle life, viewed in no unfavorable light ; 
finding indeed, except the Outrooting of Journalism 
{die auszurottende Journalistic) , little to desiderate 
therein. On some points, as his Excellenz was not 
uncholeric, I found it more pleasant to keep silence. 
Besides, his occupation being that of Owning Land, 
there might be faculties enough, which, as super- 
fluous for such- use, were little developed in him.' 11 

That to Teufelsdrockh the aspect of the world 
was nowise so faultless, and many things besides 
" the Outrooting of Journalism " might have seemed 
improvements, we can readily conjecture. With 
nothing but a barren Auscultatorship from without, 
and so many mutinous thoughts and wishes from 
within, his position was no easy one. " The Uni- 
verse," he says, "was as a mighty Sphinx-riddle, 
which I knew so little of, yet must rede, or be 
devoured. In red streaks of unspeakable grandeur, 
yet also in the blackness of darkness, was Life, to 
my too-unfurnished Thought, unfolding itself. A 
strange contradiction lay in me ; and I as yet knew 
not the solution of it ; knew not that spiritual music 
can spring only from discords set in harmony ; that 
but for Evil there w T ere no Good, as victory is only 
possible by battle." 

" I have heard affirmed (surely in jest)," observes 
he elsewhere, "by not unphilanthropic persons, 
that it were a real increase of human happiness, 
could all young men from the age of nineteen be 
covered under barrels, or rendered otherwise invisi- 
ble ; and there left to follow their lawful studies and 



chap. iv. GETTING UNDER WAY. 135 

callings, till they emerged, sadder and wiser, at the 
age of twenty-five. With which suggestion, at least 
as considered in the light of a practical scheme, I 
need scarcely say that I nowise coincide. Neverthe- 
less it is plausibly urged that, as young ladies (Mad- 
chen) are, to mankind, precisely the most delightful 
in those years ; so young gentlemen (B'itbcJieii) do 
then attain their maximum of detestability. Such 
gawks (Gecken) are they, and foolish peacocks, and 
yet with such a vulturous hunger for self-indulgence ; 
so obstinate, obstreperous, vain-glorious ; in all 
senses, so froward and so forward. No mortal's 
endeavor or attainment will, in the smallest, content 
the as yet unendeavoring, unattaining young gentle- 
man ; but he could make it all infinitely better, were 
it worthy of him. Life everywhere is the most 
manageable matter, simple as a question in the 
Rule-of-Three : multiply your second and third term 
together, divide the product by the first, and your 
quotient will be the answer, — which you are but an 
ass if you cannot come at. The booby has not yet 
found-out, by any trial, that, do what one will, there 
is ever a cursed fraction, oftenest a decimal repeater, 
and no net integer quotient so much as to be thought 
of." 

In which passage does not there lie an implied 
confession that Teufelsdrockh himself, besides his 
outward obstructions, had an inward, still greater, to 
contend with ; namely, a certain temporary, youthful, 
yet still afflictive derangement of head? Alas, on 
the former side alone, his case was hard enough. 
" It continues ever true," sa3 7 s he, "that Saturn, or 



136 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

Chronos, or what we call Time, devours all his Chil- 
dren : only by incessant Running, by incessant Work- 
ing, may you (for some threescore-and-ten years) 
escape him ; and you too he devours at last. Can 
any Sovereign, or Holy Alliance of Sovereigns, bid 
Time stand still ; even in thought, shake themselves 
free of Time ? Our whole terrestrial being is based 
on Time, and built of Time ; it is wholly a Move- 
ment, a Time-impulse ; Time is the author of it, the 
material of it. Hence also our Whole Duty, which 
is to move, to work, — in the right direction. Are 
not our Bodies and our Souls in continual movement, 
whether we will or not ; in a continual Waste, requir- 
ing a continual Repair ? Utmost satisfaction of our 
whole outward and inward Wants were but satisfac- 
tion for a space of Time ; thus, whatso we have 
done, is done, and for us annihilated, and ever must 
we go and do anew. O Time-Spirit, how hast thou 
environed and imprisoned us, and sunk us so deep 
in thy troublous dim Time-Element, that only in 
lucid moments can so much as glimpses of our upper 
Azure Home be revealed to us ! Me, however, as a 
Son of Time, unhappier than some others, was Time 
threatening to eat quite prematurely ; for, strive as I 
might, there was no good Running, so obstructed 
was the path, so gyved were the feet." That is to 
say, we presume, speaking in the dialect of this lower 
world, that Teufelsdrockrfs whole duty and neces- 
sity was, like other men's, " to work, — in the right 
direction," and that no work was to be had ; where- 
by he became wretched enough. As was natural: 
with haggard Scarcity threatening him in the dis- 



chap. iv. GETTING UNDER WAY. 137 

tance ; and so vehement a soul languishing in restless 
inaction, and forced thereby, like Sir Hudibras's 
sword by rust, 

To eat into itself, for lack 

Of something else to hew and hack! 

But on the whole, that same " excellent Passivity," 
as it has all along done, is here again vigorously 
flourishing ; in which circumstance may we not 
trace the beginnings of much that now characterizes 
our Professor; and perhaps, in faint rudiments, the 
origin of the Clothes-Philosophy itself ? Already 
the attitude he has assumed toward the World is too 
defensive ; not, as would have been desirable, a bold 
attitude of attack. " So far hitherto," he says, " as 
I had mingled with mankind, I was notable, if for 
anything, for a certain stillness of manner, which, as 
my friends often rebukingly declared, did but ill 
express the keen ardor of my feelings. I, in truth, 
regarded men with an excess both of love and of 
fear. The mystery of a Person, indeed, is ever 
divine to him that has a sense for the Godlike. 
Often, notwithstanding, was I blamed, and by half- 
strangers hated, for my so-called Hardness {H'drte), 
my Indifferentism towards men; and the seemingly 
ironic tone I had adopted, as my favorite dialect in 
conversation. Alas, the panoply of Sarcasm was 
but as a buckram case, wherein I had striven to 
envelope myself; that so my own poor Person might 
live safe there, and in all friendliness, being no 
longer exasperated by wounds. Sarcasm I now see 
to be, in general, the language of the Devil ; for 



138 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

which reason I have long since as good as renounced 
it. But how many individuals did I, in those days, 
provoke into some degree of hostility thereby ! An 
ironic man, with his sly stillness, and ambuscading 
ways, more especially an ironic young man, from 
whom it is least expected, may be viewed as a pest 
to society. Have we not seen persons of weight and 
name coming forward, with gentlest indifference, to 
tread such a one out of sight, as an insignificancy 
and worm, start ceiling-high (balkenhoch) , and 
thence fall shattered and supine, to be borne home 
on shutters, not without indignation, when he proved 
electric and a torpedo ! " 

Alas, how can a man with this devilishness of tem- 
per make way for himself in Life ; where the first 
problem, as Teufelsdrockh too admits, is "to unite 
vourself with some one and with somewhat {sick 
anzuschliesseti) ? " Division, not union, is written 
on most part of his procedure. Let us add too that, 
in no great length of time, the only important con- 
nection he had ever succeeded in forming, his con- 
nection with the Zahdarm Family, seems to have 
been paralyzed, for all practical uses, by the death 
of the "not uncholeric" old Count. This fact 
stands recorded, quite incidentally, in a certain Dis- 
course on Epitaphs, huddled into the present Bag, 
among so much else ; of which Essay the learning 
and curious penetration are more to be approved of 
than the spirit. His grand principle is, that lapi- 
dary inscriptions, of what sort soever, should be 
Historical rather than Lyrical. " By request of that 
worthy Nobleman's survivors, 11 says he, "I under- 



chap. iv. GETTING UNDER WAY. 139 

took to compose his Epitaph ; and not unmindful of 
my own rules, produced the following; which how- 
ever, for an alleged defect of Latinity, a defect never 
yet fully visible to myself, still remains unengraven ; " 
— wherein we may predict, there is more than the 
Latinity that will surprise an English reader : 

HIC JACET 

PHILIPPUS ZAEHDARM, COGNOMINE 
MAGNUS, 

ZAEHDARMI COMES, 

EX IMPERII CONCILIO, 

VELLERIS AUREI, PERISCELIDIS, NECNON VULTURIS NIGRI 

EQUES. 

QUI DUM SUB LUNA AGEBAT, 

QUINQU1ES MILLE PERDICES 

PLUMBO CONFECIT : 

VARII CIBI 

CENTUMPONDIA MILLIES CENTENA MILLIA, 

PER SE, PERQUE SERVOS QUADRUPEDES BIPEDESVE, 

HAUD SINE TUMULTU DEVOLVENS, 

IN STERCUS 

PALAM CONVERTIT. 

NUNC A LABORE REQUIESCENTEM 
OPERA SEQUUNTUR. 

SI MONUMENTUM QU^ERIS, 
FIMETUM ADSPICE. 

PRIMUM IN ORBE DEJECIT [sub dato] ; POSTREMUM 

\sub dato~\ . 



140 SARTOR RESARTUS. book il 



CHAPTER V. 

ROMANCE. 

" For long years," writes Teufelsdrockh, " had the 
poor Hebrew, in this Egypt of an Auscultatorship, 
painfully toiled, baking bricks without stubble, before 
ever the question once struck him with entire force : 
For what ? — Bey in Himmell For Food and Warmth ! 
And are Food and Warmth nowhere else, in the 
whole wide Universe, discoverable? — Come of it 
what might, I resolved to try." 

Thus then are we to see him in a new' independent 
capacity, though perhaps far from an improved one. 
Teufelsdrockh is now a man without Profession. 
Quitting the common Fleet of herring-busses and 
whalers, where indeed his leeward, laggard condition 
was painful enough, he desperately steers off, on a 
course of his own, by sextant and compass of his own. 
Unhappy Teufelsdrockh ! Though neither Fleet nor 
Traffic, nor Commodores pleased thee, still was it 
not a Fleet, sailing in prescribed track, for fixed ob- 
jects ; above all, in combination, wherein, by mutual 
guidance, by ail manner of loans and borrowings, 
each could manifoldly aid the other? How wilt thou 
sail in unknown seas ; and for thyself find that 
shorter Northwest Passage to thy fair Spice-country 
of a Nowhere? — A solitary rover, on such a voyage, 
with such nautical tactics, will meet with adventures. 
Nay, as we forthwith discover, a certain Calypso- 



chap. v. ROMANCE. 141 

Island detains him at the very outset ; and as it were 
falsifies and oversets his whole reckoning. 

" If in youth, 1 ' writes he once, " the Universe is 
majestically unveiling, and everywhere Heaven re- 
vealing itself on Earth, nowhere to the Young Man 
does this Heaven on Earth so immediately reveal 
itself as in the Young Maiden. Strangely enough, 
in this strange life of ours, it has been so appointed. 
On the whole, as I have often said, a Person {Pers'on- 
lichkeit) is ever holy to us ; a certain orthodox 
Anthropomorphism connects my Me with all Thees in 
bonds of Love : but it is in this approximation of 
the Like and Unlike, that such heavenly attraction, 
as between Negative and Positive, first burns-out 
into a flame. Is the pitifullest mortal Person, think 
you, indifferent to us ? Is it not rather our heartfelt 
wish to be made one with him ; to unite him to us, 
by gratitude, by admiration, even by fear ; or failing 
all these, unite ourselves to him? But how much 
more, in this case of the Like-Unlike ! Here is con- 
ceded us the higher mystic possibility of such a 
union, the highest in our Earth ; thus, in the con- 
ducting medium of Fantasy, flames-forth that ^re- 
development of the universal Spiritual Electricity, 
which, as unfolded between man and woman, we 
first emphatically denominate Love. 

"In every well-conditioned stripling, as I conjec- 
ture, there already blooms a certain prospective Para- 
dise, cheered by some fairest Eve ; nor, in the 
stately vistas, and flowerage and foliage of that 
Garden, is a Tree of Knowledge, beautiful and awful 
in the midst thereof, wanting. Perhaps too the whole 



142 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

is but the lovelier, if Cherubim and a Flaming Sword 
divide it from all footsteps of men ; and grant him, 
the imaginative stripling, only the view, not the 
entrance. Happy season of virtuous youth, when 
shame is still an impassable celestial barrier ; and the 
sacred air-cities of Hope have not shrunk into the 
mean clay-hamlets of Reality ; and man, by his nature, 
is yet infinite and free ! 

"As for our young Forlorn," continues Teufels- 
drockh, evidently meaning himself, " in his secluded 
way of life, and with his glowing Fantasy, the more 
fiery that it burnt under cover, as in a reverberating 
furnace, his feeling towards the Queens of this Earth 
was, and indeed is, altogether unspeakable. A visible 
Divinity dwelt in them ; to our young Friend all women 
were holy, were heavenly. As yet he but saw them 
flitting past, in their many-colored angel-plumage ; or 
hovering mute and inaccessible on the outskirts of 
^Esthetic Tea : all of air they were, all Soul and 
Form ; so lovely, like mysterious priestesses, in whose 
hand was the invisible Jacob's-ladder, whereby man 
might mount into very Heaven. That he, our poor 
Friend, should ever win for himself one of these 
Gracefuls (Holdeii) — • Ach Gottl how could he hope 
it ; should he not have died under it ? There was 
a certain delirious vertigo in the thought. 

" Thus was the young man, if all-sceptical of 
Demons and Angels such as the vulgar had once 
believed in, nevertheless not unvisited by hosts of 
true Sky-born, who visibly and audibly hovered 
round him wheresoever he went ; and they had that 
religious worship in his thought, though as yet it was 



chap. v. ROMANCE. 143 

by their mere earthly and trivial name that he named 
them. But now, if on a soul so circumstanced, some 
actual Air-maiden, incorporated into tangibility and 
reality, should cast any electric glance of kind eyes, 
saying thereby, ' Thou too mayest love and be loved ; ' 
and so kindle him, — good Heaven, what a volcanic, 
earthquake-bringing, all-consuming fire were prob- 
ably kindled ! " 

Such a fire, it afterwards appears, did actually 
burst-forth, with explosions more or less Vesuvian, 
in the inner man of Herr Diogenes ; as indeed how 
could it fail? A nature, which, in his own figurative 
style, we might say, had now not a little carbonized 
tinder, of Irritability ; with so much nitre of latent 
Passion, and sulphurous Humor enough ; the whole 
lying in such hot neighborhood, close by " a reverber- 
ating furnace of Fantasy : " have we not here the com- 
ponents of driest Gunpowder, ready, on occasion of 
the smallest spark, to blaze-up? Neither, in this our 
Life-element, are sparks anywhere wanting. With- 
out doubt, some Angel, whereof so many hovered 
round, would one day, leaving "the outskirts of 
^Esthetic Tea,'" 1 flit nigher ; and, by electric Prome- 
thean glance, kindle no despicable firework. Happy, 
if it indeed proved a Firework, and flamed-off rocket- 
wise, in successive beautiful bursts of splendor, each 
growing naturally from the other, through the several 
stages of a happy Youthful Love ; till the whole were 
safely burnt-out ; and the young soul relieved with 
little damage ! Happy, if it did not rather prove a 
Conflagration and mad Explosion ; painfully lacer- 
ating the heart itself; nay perhaps bursting the heart 



144 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

in pieces (which were Death) ; or at best, bursting 
the thin walls of your " reverberating furnace, " so 
that it rage thenceforth all unchecked among the 
contiguous combustibles (which were Madness) : till 
of the so fair and manifold internal world of our 
Diogenes, there remained Nothing, or only the 
" crater of an extinct volcano ! " 

From multifarious Documents in this Bag Capri- 
cornus, and in the adjacent ones on both sides thereof, 
it becomes manifest that our philosopher, as stoical 
and cynical as he now looks, was heartily and even 
frantically in Love : here therefore may our old 
doubts whether his heart were of stone or of flesh 
give way. He loved once ; not wisely but too well. 
And once only : for as your Congreve needs a new 
case or wrappage for every new rocket, so each human 
heart can properly exhibit but one Love, if even one ; 
the " First Love which is infinite " can be followed by 
no second like unto it. In more recent years, accord- 
ingly, the Editor of these Sheets was led to regard 
Teufelsdrockh as a man not only who would never 
wed, but who would never even flirt ; whom the 
grand-climacteric itself, and St. Martin's Summer of 
incipient Dotage, would crown with no new myrtle- 
garland. To the Professor, women are henceforth 
Pieces of Art ; of Celestial Art, indeed ; which celes- 
tial pieces he glories to survey in galleries, but has 
lost thought of purchasing. 

Psychological readers are not without curiosity to 
see how Teufelsdrockh, in this for him unexampled 
predicament, demeans himself; with what specialties 
of successive configuration, splendor, and color, 



chap. v. ROMANCE. 145 

his Firework blazes-off. Small, as usual, is the satis- 
faction that such can meet with here. From amid 
these confused masses of Eulogy and Elegy, with 
their mad Petrarchan and Werterean ware lying 
madly scattered among all sorts of quite extraneous 
matter, not so much as the fair one's name can be 
deciphered. For, without doubt, the title Blumine, 
whereby she is here designated, and which means 
simply Goddess of Flowers, must be fictitious.' Was 
her real name Flora, then ? But what was her sur- 
name, or had she none? Of what station in Life 
was she; of what parentage, fortune, aspect? Spe- 
cially, by what Pre-established Harmony of occur- 
rences did the Lover and the Loved meet one another 
in so wide a world ; how did they behave in such 
meeting? To all which questions, not unessential in 
a Biographic work, mere Conjecture must for most 
part return answer. " It was appointed, 1 ' says our 
Philosopher, "that the high celestial orbit of Blu- 
mine should intersect the low sublunary one of our 
Forlorn ; that he, looking in her empyrean eyes, 
should fancy the upper Sphere of Light was come 
down into this nether sphere of Shadows ; and find- 
ing himself mistaken, make noise enough." 

We seem to gather that she was young, hazel-eyed, 
beautiful and some one's Cousin ; highborn, and of 
high spirit ; but unhappily dependent and insolvent ; 
living, perhaps, on the not too gracious bounty of 
moneyed relatives. But how came "the Wanderer" 
into her circle? Was it by the humid vehicle of 
Aesthetic Tea, or by the arid one of mere Business? 
Was it on the hand of Herr Towgood ; or of the 



146 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

Gnadige Frau, who, as an ornamental Artist, might 
sometimes like to promote flirtation, especially for 
young cynical Nondescripts? To all appearance, it 
was chiefly by Accident, and the grace of Nature. 

"Thou fair Waldschloss," writes our Autobiog- 
rapher, "what stranger ever saw thee, were it even 
an absolved Auscultator, officially bearing in his 
pocket the last Relatio ex Actis he would ever write, 
but must have paused to wonder ! Noble Mansion ! 
There stoodest thou, in deep Mountain Amphi- 
theatre, on umbrageous lawns, in thy serene solitude ; 
stately, massive, all of granite ; glittering in the west- 
ern sunbeams, like a palace of El Dorado, overlaid 
with precious metal. Beautiful rose up, in wavy cur- 
vature, the slope of thy guardian Hills ; of the green- 
est was their sward, embossed with its dark-brown 
frets of crag, or spotted by some spreading solitary 
Tree and its shadow. To the unconscious Wayfarer 
thou wert also as an Amnion's Temple, in the Libyan 
Waste ; where, for joy and woe, the tablet of his 
Destiny lay written. Well might he pause and gaze ; 
in that glance of his were prophecy and nameless 
forebodings. 1 ' 

But now let us conjecture that the so presentient 
Auscultator has handed-in his Relatio ex Actis ; been 
invited to a glass of Rhine-wine ; and so, instead of 
returning dispirited and athirst to his dusty Town- 
home, is ushered into the Gardenhouse, where sit 
the choicest party of dames and cavaliers : if not 
engaged in Esthetic Tea, yet in trustful evening 
conversation, and perhaps Musical Coffee, for we 
hear of " harps and pure voices making the stillness 



chap. v. ROMANCE. 147 

live. 11 Scarcely, it would seem, is the Gardenhouse 
inferior in respectability to the noble Mansion itself. 
" Embowered amid rich foliage, rose-clusters, and the 
hues and odors of thousand flowers, here sat that 
brave company ; in front, from the wide-opened 
doors, fair outlook over blossom and bush, over 
grove and velvet green, stretching, undulating on- 
wards to the remote Mountain peaks : so bright, so 
mild, and everywhere the melody of birds and happy 
creatures : it was all as if man had stolen a shelter 
from the Sun in the bosom-vesture of Summer her- 
self. How came it that the Wanderer advanced 
thither with such forecasting heart (ahndungsvott), 
by the side of his gay host? Did he feel that to 
these soft influences his hard bosom ought to be 
shut ; that here, once more, Fate had it in view to 
try him; to mock him, and see whether there were 
Humor in him? 

" Next moment he finds himself presented to the 
party; and especially by name to — Blumine ! Pecu- 
liar among all dames and damosels glanced Blumine, 
there in her modesty, like a star among earthly lights. 
Noblest maiden ! whom he bent to, in body and in 
soul ; yet scarcely dared look at, for the presence 
filled him with painful yet sweetest embarrassment. 

" Blumine's was a name well known to him ; far and 
wide was the fair one heard of, for her gifts, her 
graces, her caprices : from all which vague colorings 
of Rumor, from the censures no less than from the 
praises, had our friend painted for himself a certain 
imperious Queen of Hearts, and blooming warm 
Earth-angel, much more enchanting than your mere 



148 SARTOR RESARTUS. book il 

white Heaven-angels of women, in whose placid veins 
circulates too little naphtha-fire. Herself also he had 
seen in public places ; that light yet so stately form ; 
those dark tresses, shading a face where smiles and 
sunlight played over earnest deeps : but all this he 
had seen only as a magic vision, for him inaccessible, 
almost without reality. Her sphere was too far from 
his ; how should she ever think of him ; O Heaven ! 
how should they so much as once meet together? 
And now that Rose-goddess sits in the same circle 
with him ; the light of her eyes has smiled on him ; 
if he speak, she will hear it ! Nay, who knows, since 
the heavenly Sun looks into lowest valleys, but Blu- 
mine herself might have aforetime noted the so unnot- 
able ; perhaps, from his very gainsayers, as he had 
from hers, gathered wonder, gathered favor for him. 
Was the attraction, the agitation mutual, then ; pole 
and pole trembling towards contact, when once 
brought into neighborhood? Say rather, heart swell- 
ing in presence of the Queen of Hearts ; like the 
Sea swelling when once near its Moon ! With the 
Wanderer it was even so : as in heavenward gravi- 
tation, suddenly as at the touch of a Seraph "s wand, 
his whole soul is roused from its deepest recesses ; 
and all that was painful and that was blissful there, 
dim images, vague feelings of a whole Past and a 
whole Future, are heaving in unquiet eddies within 
him. 

"Often, in far less agitating scenes, had our still 
Friend shrunk forcibly together ; and shrouded-up 
his tremors and flutterings, of what sort soever, in a 
safe cover of Silence, and perhaps of seeming Stolid- 



chap. v. ROMANCE. 149 

ity. How was it, then, that here, when trembling to 
the core of his heart, he did not sink into swoons, 
but rose into strength, into fearlessness and clear- 
ness? It was his guiding Genius (Damon) that 
inspired him ; he must go forth and meet his Des- 
tiny. Show thyself now, whispered it, or be forever 
hid. Thus sometimes it is even when your anxiety 
becomes transcendental, that the soul first feels her- 
self able to transcend it ; that she rises above it, in 
fiery victory ; and borne on new-found wings of vic- 
tory, moves so calmly, even because so rapidly, so 
irresistibly. Always must the Wanderer remember, 
with a certain satisfaction and surprise, how in this 
case he sat not silent, but struck adroitly into the 
stream of conversation; which thenceforth, to speak 
with an apparent not a real vanity, he may say that 
he continued to lead. Surely, in those hours, a cer- 
tain inspiration was imparted him, such inspiration 
as is still possible in our late era. The self-secluded 
unfolds himself in noble thoughts, in free, glowing 
words ; his soul is as one sea of light, the peculiar 
home of Truth and Intellect ; wherein also Fantasy 
bodies-forth form after form, radiant with all pris- 
matic hues. 11 

It appears, in this otherwise so happy meeting, 
there talked one " Philistine ;" who even now, to the 
general weariness, was dominantly pouring-forth 
Philistinism {Philistriositateii) ; little witting what 
hero was here entering to demolish him ! We omit 
the series of Socratic, or rather Diogenic utterances, 
not unhappy in their way, whereby the monster, 
" persuaded into silence, 11 seems soon after to have 



150 , SARTOR RESARTUS. book h. 

withdrawn for the night. " Of which dialectic ma- 
rauder, 11 writes our hero, " the discomfiture was vis- 
ibly felt as a benefit by most : but what were all 
applauses to the glad smile, threatening every mo- 
ment to become a laugh, wherewith Blumine herself 
repaid the victor? He ventured to address her, she 
answered with attention : nay what if there were a 
slight tremor in that silver voice ; what if the red 
glow of evening were hiding a transient blush ! 

" The conversation took a higher tone, one fine 
thought called forth another : it was one of those 
rare seasons, when the soul expands with full 
freedom, and man feels himself brought near to man. 
Gayly in light, graceful abandonment, the friendly 
talk played round that circle ; for the burden was 
rolled from every heart ; the barriers of Ceremony, 
which are indeed the laws of polite living, had melted 
as into vapor ; and the poor claims of Me and Thee, 
no longer parted by rigid fences, now flowed softly 
into one another ; and Life lay all harmonious, many- 
tinted, like some fair royal champaign, the sovereign 
and owner of which were Love only. Such music 
springs from kind hearts, in a kind environment of 
place and time. And yet as the light grew more 
aerial on the mountain-tops, and the shadows fell 
longer over the valley, some faint tone of sadness 
may have breathed through the heart ; and, in 
whispers more or less audible, reminded every one 
that as this bright day was drawing towards its close, 
so likewise must the Day of Man's Existence decline 
into dust and darkness ; and with all its sick toilings, 
and joyful and mournful noises, sink in the still Eter- 
nity. 



chap. v. ROMANCE. 151 

" To our Friend the hours seemed moments ; holy 
was he and happy : the words from those sweetest 
lips came over him like dew on thirsty grass ; all bet- 
ter feelings in his soul seemed to whisper, It is good 
for us to be here. At parting, the Blumine's hand 
was in his : in the balmy twilight, with the kind stars 
above them, he spoke something of meeting again, 
which was not contradicted ; he pressed gently those 
small soft fingers, and it seemed as if they were not 
hastily, not angrily withdrawn. 11 

Poor Teufelsdrockh ! it is clear to demonstration 
thou art smit : the Queen of Hearts would see a " man 
of genius " also sigh for her ; and there, by art-magic, 
in that preternatural hour, has she bound and spell- 
bound thee. " Love is not altogether a Delirium," 
says he elsewhere ; " yet has it many points in com- 
mon therewith. I call it rather a discerning of the In- 
finite in the Finite, of the Idea made Real ; which 
discerning again may be either true or false, either 
seraphic or demoniac, Inspiration or Insanity. But 
in the former case too, as in common Madness, it is 
Fantasy that superadds itself to sight ; on the so petty 
domain of the Actual plants its' Archimedes-lever, 
whereby to move at will the infinite Spiritual. Fan- 
tasy I might call the true Heaven-gate and Hell-gate 
of man : his sensuous life is but the small temporary 
stage [Zeitbuhne) , whereon thick-streaming influences 
from both these far yet near regions meet visibly, and 
act tragedy and melodrama. Sense can support her- 
self handsomely, in most countries, for some eighteen- 
pence a day ; but for Fantasy planets and solar-systems 
will not suffice. Witness your Pyrrhus conquering 



I £2 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

the world, yet drinking no better red wine than he 
had before.'" Alas ! witness also your Diogenes, flame- 
clad, scaling the upper Heaven, and verging towards 
Insanity, for prize of a " high-souled Brunette," as if 
the earth held but one and not several of these ! 

He says that, in Town, they met again: "day 
after day, like his hearfs sun, the blooming Blumine 
shone on him. Ah ! a little while ago, and he was yet 
in all darkness : him what Graceful (Holde) would 
ever love? Disbelieving all things, the poor youth 
had never learned to believe in himself. Withdrawn, 
in proud timidity, within his own fastnesses ; solitary 
from men, yet baited by night-spectres enough, he 
saw himself, with a sad indignation, constrained to 
renounce the fairest hopes of existence. And now, 
O now ! ' She looks on thee, 1 cried he : ' she the 
fairest, noblest ; do not her dark eyes tell thee, thou 
art not despised? The Heaven's-Messenger ! All 
Heaven's blessings be hers ! ' Thus did soft melodies 
flow through his heart ; tones of an infinite gratitude ; 
sweetest intimations that he also was a man, that for 
him also unutterable joys had been provided. 

" In free speech, earnest or gay, amid lambent 
glances, laughter, tears, and often with the inarticulate 
mystic speech of Music : such was the element they 
now lived in ; in such a many-tinted, radiant Aurora, 
and by this fairest of Orient Light-bringers must our 
Friend be blandished, and the new Apocalypse of 
Nature unrolled to him. Fairest Blumine ! And, 
even as a Star, all Fire and humid Softness, a very 
Light-ray incarnate ! Was there so much as a fault, 
a 'caprice, 1 he could have dispensed with? Was 



chap. v. ROMANCE. 153 

she not to him in very deed a Morning-Star ; did not 
her presence bring with it airs from Heaven? As 
from ^Eolian Harps in the breath of dawn, as from 
the Memnon's Statue struck by the rosy finger of 
Aurora, unearthly music was around him, and lapped 
him into untried balmy Rest. Pale Doubt fled away 
to the distance ; Life bloomed-up with happiness and 
hope. The past, then, was all a haggard dream ; he 
had been in the Garden of Eden, then, and could not 
discern it ! But lo now ! the black walls of his prison 
melt away ; the captive is alive, is free. If he loved 
his Disenchantress ? Ach Gott ! His whole heart 
and soul and life were hers, but never had he named 
it Love : existence was all a Feeling, not yet shaped 
into a thought." 

Nevertheless, into a Thought, nay into an Action, 
it must be shaped ; for neither Disenchanter nor Dis- 
enchantress, mere " Children of Time, 11 can abide by 
Feeling alone. The Professor knows not, to this 
day, " how in her soft, fervid bosom the Lovely found 
determination, even on hest of Necessity, to cut- 
asunder these so blissful bonds. 11 He even appears 
surprised at the " Duenna Cousin, 11 whoever she may 
have been, " in whose meagre, hunger-bitten philos- 
ophy, the religion of young hearts was, from the first, 
faintly approved of. 11 We, even at such distance, can 
explain it without necromancy. Let the philosopher 
answer this one question. What figure, at that 
period, was a Mrs. Teufelsdrockh likely to make in 
polished society? Could she have driven so much as 
j. brass-bound Gig, or even a simple iron-spring one? 
Thou foolish " absolved Auscultatory 1 before whom 



154 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

lies no prospect of capital, will any yet known " reli- 
gion of young hearts " keep the human kitchen warm? 
Pshaw! thy divine Blumine, when she "resigned 
herself to wed some richer," shows more philosophy, 
though but " a woman of genius," than thou, a pre- 
tended man. 

Our readers ha^e witnessed the origin of this Love- 
mania, and with what royal splendor it waxes, and rises. 
Let no one ask us to unfold the glories of its domi- 
nant state ; much less the horrors of its almost instan- 
taneous dissolution. How from such inorganic 
masses, henceforth madder than ever, as lie in these 
Bags, can even fragments of a living delineation be 
organized? Besides, of what profit were it? We 
view, with a lively pleasure, the gay silk Montgolfier 
start from the ground, and shoot upwards, cleaving 
the liquid deeps, till it dwindle to a luminous star: 
but what is there to look longer on, when once, by 
natural elasticity, or accident of fire, it has exploded? 
A hapless air-navigator, plunging, amid torn para- 
chutes, sand-bags, and confused wreck, fast enough 
into the jaws of the Devil ! Suffice it to know that 
Teufelsdrockh rose into the highest regions of the 
Empyrean, by a natural parabolic track, and returned 
thence in a quick perpendicular one. For the rest, let 
any feeling reader, who has been unhappy enough to 
do the like, paint it out for himself: considering only 
that if he, for his perhaps comparatively insignificant 
mistress, underwent such agonies and frenzies, what 
must Teufelsdrockh^ have been, with a fire-heart, 
and for a nonpareil Blumine ! We glance merely at 
the final scene : 



chap. vi. SORRO WS OF TE UFELSDROCKH. 1 5 5 

" One morning, he found his Morning-star all 
dimmed and dusky-red ; the fair creature was silent, 
absent, she seemed to have been weeping. Alas, no 
longer a Morning-star, but a troublous skyey Portent, 
announcing that the Doomsday had dawned ! She 
said, in a tremulous voice, They were to meet no 
more," The thunderstruck Air-sailor is not wanting 
to himself in this dread hour : but what avails it ? 
We omit the passionate expostulations, entreaties, 
indignations, since all was vain, and not even an ex- 
planation was conceded him ; and hasten to the 
catastrophe. " 'Farewell, then, Madam! 1 said he, 
not without sternness, for his stung pride helped him. 
She put her hand in his, she looked in his face, tears 
started to her eyes ; in wild audacity he clasped her 
to his bosom ; their lips were joined, their two souls, 
like two dew-drops, rushed into one, — for the first 
time, and for the last ! " Thus was Teufelsdrockh 
made immortal by a kiss. And then? Why, then — 
" thick curtains of Night rushed over his soul, as rose 
the immeasurable Crash of Doom ; and through the 
ruins as of a shivered Universe was he falling, falling, 
towards the Abyss/ 1 



CHAPTER VI. 

SORROWS OF TEUFELSDROCKH. 

We have long felt that, with a man like our Pro- 
fessor, matters must often be expected to take a course 
of their own ; that in so multiplex, intricate a nature, 



156 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

there might be channels, both for admitting and 
emitting, such as the Psychologist had seldom noted ; 
in short, that on no grand occasion and convulsion, 
neither in the joy-storm nor in the woe-storm, could 
you predict his demeanor. 

To our less philosophical readers, for example, it 
is now clear that the so passionate Teufelsdrockh, 
precipitated through " a shivered Universe" in this ex- 
traordinary way, has only one of three things which 
he can next do : Establish himself in Bedlam ; begin 
writing Satanic poetry; or blow-out his brains. In 
the progress towards any of which consummations, do 
not such readers anticipate extravagance enough ; 
breast-beating, brow-beating (against walls) , lion-bel- 
lowings of blasphemy and the like, stampings, smit- 
ings, breakages of furniture, if not arson itself? 

Nowise so does Teufelsdrockh deport him. He 
quietly lifts his Pilgerstab (Pilgrim-staff), "old 
business being soon wound-up ; " and begins a per- 
ambulation and circumambulation of the terraqueous 
Globe ! Curious it is, indeed, how with such vivacity 
of conception, such intensity of feeling, above all, 
with these unconscionable habits of Exaggeration in 
speech, he combines that wonderful stillness of his, 
that stoicism in external procedure. Thus, if his 
sudden bereavement, in this matter of the Flower- 
goddess, is talked of as a real Doomsday and Dis- 
solution of Nature, in which light doubtless it 
partly appeared to himself, his own nature is nowise 
dissolved thereby ; but rather is compressed closer. 
For once, as we might say, a Blumine by magic ap- 
pliances has unlocked that shut heart of his, and its 



chap. vi. SORROWS OF TE UFELSDROCKH. 1 5 7 

hidden things rush-out tumultuous, boundless, like 
genii enfranchised from their glass phial : but no 
sooner are your magic appliances withdrawn, than 
the strange casket of a heart springs-to again ; and 
perhaps there is now no key extant that will open it ; 
for a Teufelsdrockh, as we remarked, will not love a 
second time. Singular Diogenes ! No sooner has 
that heart-rending occurrence fairly taken place, 
than he affects to regard it as a thing natural, of which 
there is nothing more to be said. " One highest 
hope, seemingly legible in the eyes of an Angel, had 
recalled him as out of Death-shadows into celestial 
Life : but a gleam of Tophet passed over the face of 
his Angel ; he was rapt away in whirlwinds, and heard 
the laughter of Demons. It was a Calenture, 11 adds 
he, "whereby the Youth saw green Paradise-groves 
in the waste Ocean-waters : a lying vision, yet not 
wholly a lie, for he saw it." But what things soever 
passed in him, when he ceased to see it ; what ra- 
gings and despairings soever Teufelsdrockh^ soul 
was the scene of, he has the goodness to conceal 
under a quite opaque cover of Silence. We know it 
well ; the first mad paroxysm past, our brave Gne- 
schen collected his dismembered philosophies, and 
buttoned himself together ; he was meek, silent, or 
spoke of the weather and the Journals : only by a 
transient knitting of those shaggy brows, by some 
deep flash of those eyes, glancing one knew not 
whether with tear-dew or with fierce fire, — might 
you have guessed what a Gehenna was within ; that a 
whole Satanic School were spouting, though in- 
audibly, there. To consume your own choler, as 



158 SARTOR RESARTUS. BOOK II. 

some chimneys consume their own smoke ; to keep 
a whole Satanic School spouting, if it must spout, 
inaudibly, is a negative yet no slight virtue, nor one 
of the commonest in these times. 

Nevertheless, we will not take upon us to say, that 
in the strange measure he fell upon, there was not a 
touch of latent Insanity ; whereof indeed the actual 
condition of these Documents in Capricornus 
and Aquarius is no bad emblem. His so unlimited 
Wanderings, toilsome enough, are without assigned 
or perhaps assignable aim ; internal Unrest seems 
his sole guidance; he wanders, wanders, as if that 
curse of the Prophet had fallen on him, and he 
were "made like unto a wheel.' 1 Doubtless, too, 
the chaotic nature of these Paper-bags aggravates 
our obscurity. Quite without note of preparation, 
for example, we come upon the following slip : "A 
peculiar feeling it is that will rise in the Traveller, 
when turning some hill-range in his desert road, he 
descries lying far below, embosomed among its 
groves and green natural bulwarks, and all diminished 
to a toybox, the fair Town, where so many souls, as 
it were seen and yet unseen, are driving their multi- 
farious traffic . Its white steeple is then truly a 
starward -pointing finger ; the canopy of blue smoke 
seems like a sort of Life-breath : for always, of its 
own unity, the soul gives unity to whatsoever it 
looks on with love ; thus does the little Dwelling- 
place of men, in itself a congeries of houses and 
huts, become for us an individual, almost a person. 
But what thousand other thoughts unite thereto, if 
the place has to ourselves been the arena of joyous 



chap. vi. SORROWS OF TEUFELSDROCKH. 159 

or mournful experiences ; if perhaps the cradle we 
were rocked in still stands there, if our Loving ones 
still dwell there, if our Buried ones there slumber! 1 ' 
Does Teufelsdrockh, as the wounded eagle is said to 
make for its own eyrie, and indeed military deserters, 
and all hunted outcast creatures, turn as if by in- 
stinct in the direction of their birthland, — fly first, 
in this extremity, towards his native Entepfuhl ; but 
reflecting that there no help awaits him, take only 
one wistful look from the distance, and then wend 
elsewhither? 

Little happier seems to be his next flight : into the 
wilds of Nature ; as if in her mother-bosom he would 
seek healing. So at least we incline to interpret 
the following Notice, separated from the former by 
some considerable space, wherein, however, is noth- 
ing noteworthy : 

" Mountains were not new to him ; but rarely are 
Mountains seen in such combined majesty and grace 
as here. The rocks are of that sort call Primitive by 
the mineralogists, which always arrange themselves 
in masses of a rugged, gigantic character ; which 
ruggedness, however, is here tempered by a singular 
airiness of form, and softness of environment : in a 
climate favorable to vegetation, the gray cliff, itself 
covered with lichens, shoots-up through a garment 
of foliage or verdure ; and white, bright cottages, 
tree-shaded, cluster around the everlasting granite. 
In fine vicissitude, Beauty alternates with Grandeur : 
you ride through stony hollows, along strait passes, 
traversed by torrents, overhung by high walls of 
rock ; now winding amid broken shaggy chasms, 



160 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

and huge fragments ; now suddenly emerging into 
some emerald valley, where the streamlet collects 
itself into a Lake, and man has again found a fair 
dwelling, and it seems as if Peace had established 
herself in the bosom of Strength. 

" To Peace, however, in this vortex of existence, 
can the Son of Time not pretend : still less if some 
Spectre haunt him from the Past ; and the Future 
is wholly a Stygian Darkness, spectre-bearing. 
Reasonably might the Wanderer exclaim to himself: 
Are not the gates of this world's Happiness inexor- 
ably shut against thee ; hast thou a hope that is not 
mad? Nevertheless, one may still murmur audibly, 
or in the original Greek if that suit thee better : 
'Whoso can look on Death will start at no shadows. 1 

" From such meditations is the Wanderer's atten- 
tion called outwards ; for now the Valley closes-in 
abruptly, intersected by a huge mountain mass, the 
stony water-worn ascent of which is not to be accom- 
plished on horseback. Arrived aloft, he finds him- 
self again lifted into the evening sunset light ; and 
cannot but pause, and gaze round him, some 
moments there. An upland irregular expanse of 
wold, where valleys in complex branchings are sud- 
denly or slowly arranging their descent towards 
every quarter of the sky. The mountain-ranges are 
beneath your feet, and folded together : only the 
loftier summits look down here and there as on a 
second plain ; lakes also lie clear and earnest in their 
solitude. No trace of man now visible ; unless in- 
deed it were he who fashioned that little visible link 
of Highway, here, as would seem, scaling the inac- 



ch a p. v i. SORR O WS OF TE UFELSDR O CKH. 1 6 1 

cessible, to unite Province with Province. But sun- 
wards, lo you! how it towers sheer up, a world of 
Mountains, the diadem and centre of the mountain 
region ! A hundred and a hundred savage peaks, 
in the last light of Day; all glowing, of gold and 
amethyst, like giant spirits of the wilderness ; there 
in their silence, in their solitude, even as on the night 
when Noah's Deluge first dried ! Beautiful, nay 
solemn, was the sudden aspect to our Wanderer. 
He gazed over those stupendous masses with wonder, 
almost with longing desire ; never till this hour had 
he known Nature, that she was One, that she Was 
his Mother and divine. And as the ruddy glow was 
fading into clearness in the sky, and the Sun had 
now departed, a murmur of Eternity and Immensity, 
of Death and of Life, stole through his soul ; and he 
felt as if Death and Life were one, as if the Earth 
were not dead, as if the Spirit of the Earth had its 
throne in that splendor, and his own spirit were 
therewith holding communion. 

" The spell was broken by a sound of carriage- 
wheels.- Emerging from the hidden Northward, to 
sink soon into the hidden Southward, came a gay 
Barouche-and-four : it was open ; servants and pos- 
tillions wore wedding-favors : that happy pair, then, 
had found each other, it was their marriage evening ! 
Few moments brought them near : Dn Himmell 
It was Herr Towgood and — Blumine ! With slight 
unrecognizing salutation they passed me ; plunged 
down amid the neighboring thickets, onwards, to 
Heaven, and to England; and I, in my friend Rich- 
ter's words, I reinained alone, behind them, with the 
Nights 



1 62 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

Were it not cruel in these circumstances, here 
might be the place to insert an observation, gleaned 
long ago from the great Clothes- Volume, where it 
stands with quite other intent: "Some time before 
Small-pox was extirpated," says the Professor, " there 
came a new malady of the spiritual sort on Europe : 
I mean the epidemic, now endemical, of View-hunt- 
ing. Poets of old date, being privileged with 
Senses, had also enjoyed external Nature ; but 
chiefly as we enjoy the crystal cup which holds good 
or bad liquor for us ; that is to say, in silence, or 
with slight incidental commentary : never, as I com- 
pute, till after the Sorrows of Werter, was there 
man found who would say : Come let us make a 
Description ! " Having drunk the liquor, come let us 
eat the glass ! Of which endemic the Jenner is un- 
happily still to seek." Too true ! 

We reckon it more important to remark that the 
Professor's Wanderings, so far as his stoical and 
cynical envelopment admits us to clear insight, here 
first take their permanent character, fatuous or not. 
That Basilisk-glance of the Barouche-and-four seems 
to have withered-up what little remnant of a purpose 
may have still lurked in him : Life has become wholly 
a dark labyrinth ; wherein, through long years, our 
Friend, flying from spectres, has to stumble about at 
random, and naturally with more haste than progress. 

Foolish were it in us to attempt following him, 
even from afar, in this extraordinary world-pilgrimage 
of his ; the simplest record of which, were clear 
record possible, would fill volumes. Hopeless is the 
obscurity, unspeakable the confusion. He glides 



chap. vi. SORROWS OF TEUFELSDROCKH. 163 

from country to country, from condition to condi- 
tion ; vanishing and re-appearing, no man can calcu- 
late how or where. Through all quarters of the 
world he wanders, and apparently through all circles 
of society. If in any scene, perhaps difficult to fix 
geographically, he settles for a time, and forms con- 
nections, be sure he will snap them abruptly asun- 
der. Let him sink out of sight as Private Scholar 
{Privatisirender) , living by the grace of God in some 
European capital, you may next find him as Hadjee in 
the neighborhood of Mecca. It is an inexplicable 
Phantasmagoria, capricious, quick-changing; as if 
our Traveller, instead of limbs and highways, had 
transported himself by some wishing-carpet, or For- 
tunatus' Hat. The whole, too, imparted emblem- 
atically, in dim multifarious tokens (as that collection 
of Street-Advertisements) ; with only some touch of 
direct historical notice sparingly interspersed : little 
light-islets in the world of haze ! So that, from this 
point, the Professor is more of an enigma than ever. 
In figurative language, we might say he becomes, not 
indeed a spirit, yet spiritualized, vaporized. Fact 
unparalleled in Biography : The river of his History, 
which we have traced from its tiniest fountains, and 
hoped to see flow onward, with increasing current, 
into the ocean, here dashes itself over that terrific 
Lover's Leap ; and, as a mad-foaming cataract, flies 
wholly into tumultuous clouds of spray ! Low down 
it indeed collects again into pools and plashes ; yet 
only at a great distance, and with difficulty, if at all, 
into a general stream. To cast a glance into certain 
of those pools and plashes, and trace whither they 



1 64 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

run, must, for a chapter or two, form the limit of our 
endeavor. 

For which end doubtless those direct historical 
Notices, where they can be met with, are the best. 
Nevertheless, of this sort too there occurs much, 
which, with our present light, it were question- 
able to emit. Teufelsdrockh, vibrating everywhere 
between the highest and the lowest levels, comes 
into contact with public History itself. For example, 
those conversations and relations with illustrious 
Persons, as Sultan Mahmoud, the Emperor Napo- 
leon, and others, are they not as yet rather of a diplo- 
matic character than of a biographic? The Editor, 
appreciating the sacredness of crowned heads, nay 
perhaps suspecting the possible trickeries of a Clothes- 
Philosopher, will eschew this province for the pres- 
ent ; a new time may bring new insight and a differ- 
ent duty. 

If we ask now, not indeed with what ulterior 
Purpose, for there was none, yet with what imme- 
diate outlooks ; at all events, in what mood of mind, 
the Professor undertook and prosecuted this world- 
pilgrimage, — the answer is more distinct than favor- 
able. "A nameless Unrest, 1 ' says he, "urged me 
forward ; to which the outward motion was some 
momentary lying solace. Whither should I go? My 
Loadstars were blotted out ; in that canopy of grim 
fire shone no star Yet forward must I ; the ground 
burnt under me ; there was no rest for the sole of my 
foot. I was alone, alone ! Ever too the strong 
inward longing shaped Fantasms for itself: towards 
these, one after the other, must I fruitlessly wander. 



chap, v i. SORR O WS OF TE UFELSDR O CKH. 1 6 5 

A feeling I had, that for my fever-thirst there was 
and must be somewhere a healing Fountain. To 
many fondly imagined Fountains, the Saints 1 Wells 
of these days, did I pilgrim; to great Men, to great 
Cities, to great Events : but found there no healing. 
In strange countries, as in the well-known ; in savage 
deserts, as in the press of corrupt civilization, it was 
ever the same : how could your Wanderer escape 
from — his own Shadow f Nevertheless still For- 
ward ! I felt as if in great haste ; to do I saw not 
what. From the depths of my own heart, it called 
to me, Forwards ! The winds and the streams, and 
all Nature sounded to me, Forwards ! Ach Gott, I 
was even, once for all, a Son of Time. 1 ' 

From which is it not clear that the internal Satanic 
School was still active enough ? He says elsewhere : 
" The Enckiridiofi of Epictetus I had ever with me, 
often as my sole rational companion ; and regret to 
mention that the nourishment it yielded was trifling.'" 
Thou foolish Teufelsdrockh ! How could it else? 
Hadst thou not Greek enough to understand thus 
much : The end of Man is an Action, and not a 
Thought, though it were the noblest ? 

"How I lived? 11 writes he once: "Friend, hast 
thou considered the ' rugged all-nourishing Earth, 1 
as Sophocles well names her ; how she feeds the spar- 
row on the house-top, much more her darling, man? 
While thou stirrest and livest, thou hast a probability 
of victual. My breakfast of tea has been cooked by 
a Tartar woman, with water of the Amur, who wiped 
her earthen kettle with a horse-tail. I have roasted 
wild-eggs in the sand of Sahara ; I have awakened in 



1 66 SARTOR RESARTUS. book II. 

Paris Estrapades and Vienna Malzleins, with no 
prospect of breakfast beyond elemental liquid. That 
I had my Living to seek saved me from Dying, — by 
suicide. In our busy Europe, is there not an everlast- 
ing demand for Intellect, in the chemical, mechanical, 
political, religious, educational, commercial depart- 
ments? . In Pagan countries, cannot one write 
Fetiches ? Living ! Little knowest thou what 
alchemy is in an inventive Soul ; how, as with its 
little finger, it can create provision enough for the 
body (of a Philosopher) ; and then, as with both 
hands, create quite other than provision; namely, 
spectres to torment itself withal." 

Poor Teufelsdrockh ! Flying with Hunger always 
parallel to him ; and a whole Infernal Chase in his rear ; 
so that the countenance of Hunger is comparatively 
a friend's ! Thus must he, in the temper of ancient 
Cain, or of the modern Wandering Jew, — save only 
that he feels himself not guilty and but suffering the 
pains of guilt, — wend to and fro with aimless speed. 
Thus must he, over the whole surface of the Earth 
(by footprints), write his Sorrows of Teufelsdrockh; 
even as the great Goethe, in passionate words, had to 
write his Sorrows of Werter, before the spirit freed 
herself, and he could become a Man. Vain truly is 
the hope of your swiftest Runner to escape " from his 
own Shadow ! " Nevertheless, in these sick days, 
when the Born of Heaven first descries himself (about 
the age of twenty) in a world such as ours, richer 
than usual in two things, in Truths grown obsolete, 
and Trades grown obsolete, — what can the fool think 
but that it is all a Den of Lies, wherein whoso will not 



chap. vii. THE EVERLASTING NO. 167 

speak Lies and act Lies, must stand idle and despair? 
Whereby it happens that, for your nobler minds, the 
publishing of some such Work of Art, in one or the 
other dialect, becomes almost a necessity. For what 
is it properly but an Altercation with the Devil, be- 
fore you begin honestly Fighting him ? Your Byron 
publishes his Sorrows of Lord George, in verse and 
in prose, and copiously otherwise : your Bonaparte 
represents his Sorrows of Napoleon Opera, in an ail- 
too stupendous style ; with music of cannon-volleys, 
and murder-shrieks of a world ; his stage-lights are 
the fires of Conflagration ; his rhyme and recitative 
are the tramp of embattled Hosts and the sound of 
falling Cities. — Happier is he who, like our Clothes- 
Philosopher, can write such matter, since it must be 
written, on the insensible Earth, with his shoe-soles 
only ; and also survive the writing thereof! 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE EVERLASTING NO. 

Under the strange nebulous envelopment, wherein 
our Professor has now shrouded himself, no doubt 
but his spiritual nature is nevertheless progressive, 
and growing: for how can the " Son of Time," in 
any case, stand still? We behold him, through those 
dim years, in a state of crisis, of transition : his mad 
Pilgrimings, and general solution into aimless Dis- 
continuity, what is all this but a mad Fermentation ; 



1 68 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

wherefrom, the fiercer it is, the clearer product will 
one day evolve itself? 

Such transitions are ever full of pain : thus the 
Eagle when he moults is sickly ; and, to attain his 
new beak, must harshly dash-off the old one upon 
rocks. What Stoicism soever our Wanderer, in his 
individual acts and motions, may affect, it is clear 
that there is a hot fever of anarchy and misery raging 
within ; coruscations of which flash out :. as, indeed, 
how could there be other? Have we not seen him 
disappointed, bemocked of Destiny, through long 
years ? All that the young heart might desire and 
pray for has been denied ; nay, as in the last worst 
instance, offered and then snatched away. Ever an 
"excellent Passivity;" but of useful, reasonable 
Activity, essential to the former as Food to Hunger, 
nothing granted : till at length, in this wild Pil- 
grimage, he must forcibly seize for himself an 
Activity, though useless, unreasonable. Alas, his 
cup of bitterness, which had been filling drop by 
drop, ever since that first " ruddy morning " in the 
Hinterschlag Gymnasium, was at the very lip ; and 
then with that poison-drop, of the Towgood-and- 
Blumine business, it runs over, and even hisses over 
in a deluge of foam. 

He himself says once, with more justice than origi- 
nality : Man is, properly speaking, based upon Hope, 
he has no other possession but Hope; this world of 
his is emphatically the " Place of Hope." What, 
then, was our Professor's possession? We see him, 
for the present, quite shut-out from Hope ; looking 
not into the golden orient, but vaguely all round 



chap. vii. THE EVERLASTING NO. 169 

into a dim copper firmament, pregnant with earth- 
quake and tornado. 

Alas, shut-out from Hope, in a deeper sense than 
we yet dream of ! For, as he wanders wearisomely 
through this world, he has now lost all tidings of; 
another and higher. Full of religion, or at least of 
religiosity, as our Friend has since exhibited himself, 
he hides not that, in those days, he was wholly irre- 
ligious : " Doubt had darkened into Unbelief," says 
he ; " shade after shade goes grimly over your soul, 
till you have the fixed, starless, Tartarean black." 
To such readers as have reflected, what can be called 
reflecting, on man's life, and happily discovered, in 
contradiction to much Profit-and-Loss Philosophy, 
speculative and practical, that Soul is not synonymous 
with Stomach ; who understand, therefore, in our 
Friend's words, " that, for man's well-being, Faith is 
properly the one thing needful ; how, with it, Martyrs, 
otherwise weak, can cheerfully endure the shame and 
the cross ; and without it, Worldlings puke-up their 
sick existence, by suicide, in the midst of luxury : " 
to such it will be clear that, for a pure moral nature, 
the loss of his religious Belief was the loss of every- 
thing. Unhappy young man ! All wounds, the crush 
of long-continued Destitution, the stab of false 
Friendship and of false Love, all wounds in thy so 
genial heart, would have healed again, had not its 
life-warmth been withdrawn. Well might he exclaim, 
in his wild way : "Is there no God, then ; but at best 
an absentee God, sitting idle, ever since the first 
Sabbath, at the outside of his Universe, and seeing 
it go ? Has the word Duty no meaning ; is what we 



170 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

call Duty no divine Messenger and Guide, but a false 
earthly Fantasm, made-up of Desire and Fear, of 
emanations from the Gallows and from Doctor Gra- 
ham's Celestial-Bed? Happiness of an approving 
Conscience ! Did not Paul of Tarsus, whom admir- 
ing men have since named Saint, feel that he was " the 
chief of sinners ; " and Nero of Rome, jocund in spirit 
(Wohlgemuth) , spend much of his time in fiddling ? 
Foolish Wordmonger and Motive-grinder, who in thy 
Logic-mill hast an earthly mechanism for the Godlike 
itself, and wouldst fain grind me out Virtue from the 
husks of Pleasure, — I tell thee, Nay ! To the unre- 
generate Prometheus Vinctus of a man, it is ever the 
bitterest aggravation of his wretchedness that he is 
conscious of Virtue, that he feels himself the victim 
not of suffering only, but of injustice. What 
then? Is the heroic inspiration we name Virtue 
but some Passion ; some bubble of the blood, bub- 
bling in the direction others profit by ? I know not : 
only this I know, If what thou namest Happiness be our 
true aim, then are we all astray. With Stupidity and 
sound Digestion man may front much. But what, 
in these dull unimaginative days, are the terrors of 
Conscience to the diseases of the Liver ! Not on 
Morality, but on Cookery, let us build our strong- 
hold : there brandishing our frying-pan, as censer, 
let us offer sweet incense to the Devil, and live at 
ease on the fat things he has provided for his 
Elect!" 

Thus has the bewildered Wanderer to stand, as so 
many have done, shouting question after question 
into the Sibyl-cave of Destiny, and receive no Answer 



chap, vii, THE EVERLASTING NO. 171 

but an Echo. It is all a grim Desert, this once 
fair world of his ; wherein is heard only the howling 
of wild-beasts, or the shrieks of despairing, hate- 
filled men ; and no Pillar of Cloud by day, and no 
Pillar of Fire by night, any longer guides the Pilgrim. 
To such length has the spirit of Inquiry carried him. 
" But what boots it (was thufs)?" cries he: "it is 
but the common lot in this era. Not having come to 
spiritual majority prior to the Steele de Louis Quinze, 
and not being born purely a Loghead (Dummkopf) , 
thou hadst no other outlook. The whole world is, 
like thee, sold to Unbelief; their old Temples of the 
Godhead, which for long have not been rainproof, 
crumble down ; and men ask now : Where is the 
Godhead ; our eyes never saw him ? " 

Pitiful enough were it, for all these wild utter- 
ances, to call our Diogenes wicked. Unprofitable 
servants as we all are, perhaps at no era of his life 
was he more decisively the Servant of Goodness, the 
Servant of God, than even now when doubting God's 
existence. "One circumstance I note," says he: 
" after all the nameless woe that Inquiry, which for 
me, what it is not always, was genuine Love of Truth, 
had wrought me, I nevertheless still loved Truth, 
and would bate no jot of my allegiance to her. 
' Truth ! ' I cried, ' though the Heavens crush me 
for following her : no Falsehood ! though a whole ce- 
lestial Lubberland were the price of Apostasy.' In 
conduct it was the same. Had a divine Messenger 
from the clouds, or miraculous Handwriting on the 
wall, convincingly proclaimed to me This thou shall 
do, with what passionate readiness, as I often 



172 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

thought, would I have done it, had it been leaping 
into the infernal Fire. Thus, in spite of all Motive- 
grinders, and Mechanical Profit-and-Loss Philoso- 
phies, with the sick ophthalmia and hallucination 
they had brought on, was the Infinite nature of Duty- 
still dimly present to me : living without God in the 
world, of God's light I was not utterly bereft ; if my 
as yet sealed eyes, with their unspeakable longing, 
could nowhere see Him, nevertheless in my heart He 
was present, and His heaven-written Law still stood 
legible and sacred there. " 

Meanwhile, under all these tribulations, and tem- 
poral and spiritual destitutions, what must the Wan- 
derer, in his silent soul, have endured! "The 
painfullest feeling, 1 ' writes he, " is that of your own 
Feebleness (Unkraff) ; ever, as the English Milton 
says, to be weak is the true misery. And yet of your 
Strength there is and can be no clear feeling, save 
by what you have prospered in, by what you have 
done. Between vague wavering Capability and fixed 
undubitable Performance, what a difference ! A cer- 
tain inarticulate Self-consciousness dwells dimly in 
us ; which only our Works can render articulate and 
decisively discernible. Our Works are the mirror 
wherein the spirit first sees its natural lineaments. 
Hence, too, the folly of that impossible Precept, 
Know thyself '; till it be translated into this partially 
possible one, Know what thoit canst work at. 

" But for me, so strangely unprosperous had I been, 
the net-result of my Workings amounted as yet 
simply to — Nothing. How then could I believe in 
my Strength, when there was as yet no mirror to see 



chap. vii. THE EVERLASTING NO. 173 

it in ? Ever did this agitating, yet, as I now per- 
ceive, quite frivolous question, remain to me insol- 
uble : Hast thou a certain Faculty, a certain Worth, 
such even as the most have not ; or art thou the 
completest Dullard of these modern times ? Alas, the 
fearful Unbelief is unbelief in yourself; and how 
could I believe ? Had not my first, last Faith in 
myself, when even to me the Heavens seemed laid 
open, and I dared to love, been ail-too cruelly be- 
lied ? The Speculative Mystery of Life grew ever 
more mysterious to me : neither in the practical 
Mystery had I made the slightest progress, but been 
everywhere buffeted, foiled, and contemptuously cast 
out. A feeble unit in the middle of a threatening 
Infinitude, I seemed to have nothing given me but 
eyes, whereby to discern my own wretchedness. 
Invisible yet impenetrable walls, as of Enchantment, 
divided me from all living : was there, in the wide 
world, any true bosom I could press trustfully to 
mine ? O Heaven, No, there was none ! I kept a 
lock upon my lips : why should I speak much with 
that shifting variety of so-called Friends, in whose 
withered, vain and too-hungry souls Friendship was 
but an incredible tradition ? In such cases, your 
resource is to talk little, and that little mostly from 
the Newspapers. Now when I look back, it was a 
strange isolation I then lived in. The men and 
women around me, even speaking with me, were but 
Figures ; I had, practically, forgotten that they were 
alive, that. they were not merely automatic. In the 
midst of their crowded streets and assemblages, I 
walked solitary ; and (except as it was my own 



174 SARTOR RESARTUS. book n. 

heart, not another's, that I kept devouring) savage 
also, as the tiger in his jungle. Some comfort it 
would have been, could I, like a Faust, have fancied 
myself tempted and tormented of the Devil; for a 
Hell, as I imagine, without Life, though only diabolic 
Life, were more frightful : but in our age of Down-pull- 
ing and Disbelief, the very Devil has been pulled 
down, you cannot so much as believe in a Devil. To 
me the Universe was all void of Life, of Purpose, of 
Volition, even of Hostility : it was one huge, dead, 
immeasurable Steam-engine, rolling on, in its dead in- 
difference, to grind me limb from limb. O, the vast, 
gloomy, solitary Golgotha, and Mill of Death ! Why 
was the Living banished thither companionless, con- 
scious ? Why, if there is no Devil ; nay, unless the 
Devil is your God ? " 

A prey incessantly to such corrosions, might not, 
moreover, as the worst aggravation to them, the 
iron constitution even of a Teufelsdrockh threaten to 
fail ? We conjecture that he has known sickness ; 
and, in spite of his locomotive habits, perhaps sick- 
ness of the chronic sort. Hear this, for example : 
"How beautiful to die of broken-heart, on Paper! 
Quite another thing in practice ; every window of 
your Feeling, even of your Intellect, as it were, be- 
grimed and mud-bespattered, so that no pure ray 
can enter ; a whole Drugshop in your inwards ; the 
fordone soul drowning slowly in quagmires of Dis- 
gust ! " 

Putting all which external and internal miseries 
together, may we not find in the following sentences, 
quite in our Professor's still vein, significance 



chap. vii. THE EVERLASTING NO. 175 

enough? "From Suicide a certain aftershine 
(Nachschein) of Christianity withheld me : perhaps 
also a certain indolence of character ; for, was not 
that a remedy I had at any time within reach? 
Often, however, was there a question present to me : 
Should some one now, at the turning of that corner, 
blow thee suddenly out of Space, into the other 
World, or other No-world, by pistol-shot, — how 
were it? On which ground, too, I have often, in sea- 
storms and sieged cities and other death-scenes, 
exhibited an imperturbability, which passed, falsely 
enough, for courage." 

" So had it lasted," concludes the Wanderer, "so 
had it lasted, as in bitter protracted Death-agony, 
through long years. The heart within me, un visited 
by any heavenly dewdrop, was smouldering in sul- 
phurous, slow-consuming fire. Almost since earliest 
memory I had shed no tear; or once only when I, 
murmuring half-audibly, recited Faust's Deathsong, 
that wild Selig der den er im Siegesglanze findet 
(Happy whom he finds in Battle's splendor), and 
thought that of this last Friend even I was not for- 
saken, that Destiny itself could not doom me not to 
die. Having no hope, neither had I any definite fear, 
were it of Man or of Devil : nay, I often felt as if it 
might be solacing, could the Arch-Devil himself, 
though in Tartarean terrors, but rise to me, that I 
might tell him a little of my mind. And yet, 
strangely enough, I lived in a continual, indefinite, 
pining fear; tremulous, pusillanimous, apprehensive 
of I knew not what : it seemed as if all things in the 
Heavens above and the Earth beneath would hurt 



176 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

me ; as if the Heavens and the Earth were but 
boundless jaws of a devouring monster, wherein I, 
palpitating, waited to be devoured. 

" Full of such humor, and perhaps the miserablest 
man in the whole French Capital or Suburbs, was I, 
one sultry Dogday, after much perambulation, toil- 
ing along the dirty little Rue Saint-Thomas de VE11- 
fer, among civic rubbish enough, in a close atmos- 
phere, and over pavements hot as Nebuchadnez- 
zar's Furnace ; whereby doubtless my spirits were 
little cheered ; when, all at once, there rose a 
Thought in me, and I asked myself: 'What art 
thou afraid of? Wherefore, like a coward, dost thou 
forever pip and whimper, and go cowering and trem- 
bling? Despicable biped ! what is the sum-total of 
the worst that lies before thee? Death? Well, 
Death ; and say the pangs of Tophet too, and all 
that the Devil and Man may, will or can do- against 
thee ! Hast thou not a heart ; canst thou not suffer 
whatsoever it be ; and, as a Child of Freedom, 
though outcast, trample Tophet itself under thy feet, 
while it consumes thee? Let it come, then; I will 
meet it and defy it ! " And as I so thought, there 
rushed like a stream of fire over my whole soul ; and 
I shook base Fear away from me forever. I was 
strong, of unknown strength ; a spirit, almost a god. 
Ever from that time, the temper of my misery was 
changed : not Fear or whining Sorrow was it, but 
Indignation and grim fire-eyed Defiance. 

" Thus had the Everlasting No {das ewige Neiii) 
pealed authoritatively through all the recesses of my 
Being, of my Me ; and then was it that my whole 



chap. viii. CENTRE OF INDIFFERENCE. 177 

Me stood up, in native God-created majesty, and 
with emphasis recorded its Protest. Such a Protest, 
the most important transaction in Life, may that 
same Indignation and Defiance, in a psychological 
point of view, be fitly called. The Everlasting No 
had said : ' Behold, thou art fatherless, outcast, and 
the Universe is mine (the Devil's) ; ' to which my 
whole Me now made answer : ' / am not thine, but 
Free, and forever hate thee ! ' 

"It is from this hour that I incline to date my 
Spiritual New-birth, or Baphometic Fire-baptism ; 
perhaps I directly thereupon began to be a Man." 



CHAPTER VIII. 

CENTRE OF INDIFFERENCE. 

Though, after this " Baphometic Fire-baptism " of 
his, our Wanderer signifies that his Unrest was but 
increased; as, indeed, " Indignation and Defiance," 
especially against things in general, are not the most 
peaceable inmates ; yet can the Psychologist surmise 
that it was no longer a quite hopeless Unrest ; that 
henceforth it had at least a fixed centre to revolve 
round. For the fire-baptized soul, long so scathed 
and thunder-driven, here feels its own Freedom, 
which feeling is its Baphometic Baptism ; the citadel 
of its whole kingdom it has thus gained by assault, 
and will keep inexpugnable ; outwards from which 
the remaining dominions, not indeed without hard 



178 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

battling, will doubtless by degrees be conquered and 
pacificated. Under another figure, we might say, if 
in that great moment, in the Rue Saint-Thomas de 
VEnfer, the old inward Satanic School was not yet 
thrown out of doors, it received peremptory judicial 
notice to quit ; — whereby, for the rest, its howl- 
chantings, Ernulphus-cursings, and rebellious gnash- 
ings of teeth, might, in the mean while, become only 
the more tumultuous, and difficult to keep secret. 

Accordingly, if we scrutinize these Pilgrimings well, 
there is perhaps discernible henceforth a certain in- 
cipient method in their madness. Not wholly as a 
Spectre does Teufelsdrockh now storm through the 
world ; at worst as a spectre-fighting Man, nay who 
will one day be a Spectre-queller. If pilgriming rest- 
lessly to so many " Saints 1 Wells," and ever without 
quenching of his thirst, he nevertheless finds little 
secular wells, whereby from time to time some allevi- 
ation is ministered. In a word, he is now, if not 
ceasing, yet intermitting to "eat his own heart; 11 
and clutches round him outwardly on the Not-me 
for wholesomer food. Does not the following glimpse 
exhibit him in a much more natural state ? 

"Towns also and Cities, especially the ancient, I 
failed not to look upon with interest. How beautiful 
to see thereby, as through a long vista, into the 
remote Time ; to have, as it were, an actual section 
of almost the earliest Past brought safe into the 
Present, and set before your eyes ! There, in 
that old City, was a live ember of Culinary Fire put 
down, say only two-thousand years ago ; and there, 
burning more or less triumphantly, with such fuel as 



chap. viii. CENTRE OF INDIFFERENCE. 179 

the region yielded, it has burnt, and still burns, and 
thou thyself seest the very smoke thereof. Ah ! and 
the far more mysterious live ember of Vital Fire was 
then also put down there ; and still miraculously 
burns and spreads ; and the smoke and ashes thereof 
(in these Judgment-Halls and Churchyards), and 
its bellows-engines (in these Churches), thou still 
seest ; and its flame, looking out from every kind 
countenance, and every hateful one, still warms thee 
or scorches thee. 

" Of Man's Activity and Attainment the chief re- 
sults are aeriform, mystic, and preserved in Tradition 
only : such are his Forms of Government, with the 
Authority they rest on ; his Customs, or Fashions 
both of Cloth-habits and of Soul-habits ; much more 
his collective stock of Handicrafts, the whole Faculty 
he has acquired of manipulating Nature : all these 
things, as indispensable and priceless as they are, 
cannot in any way be fixed under lock and key, but 
must flit, spirit-like, on impalpable vehicles, from 
Father to Son ; if you demand sight of them, they 
are nowhere to be met with. Visible Ploughmen 
and Hammermen there have been ever, from Cain 
and Tubalcain downwards : but where does your 
accumulated Agricultural, Metallurgic, and other 
Manufacturing Skill lie warehoused? It transmits 
itself on the atmospheric air, on the sun's rays 
(by Hearing and by Vision) ; it is a thing aeriform, 
impalpable, of quite spiritual sort. In like manner, 
ask me not, Where are the Laws ; where is the 
Government? In vain wilt thou go to Schonbrunn, 
to Downing Street, to the Palais Bourbon : thou 



ioo SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

findest nothing there but brick or stone houses, and 
some bundles of Papers tied with tape. Where, 
then, is that same cunningly-devised almighty 
Government of theirs to be laid hands on? Every- 
where, yet nowhere : seen only in its works, this too 
is a thing aeriform, invisible; or if you will, mystic 
and miraculous. So spiritual (geistig) is our whole 
daily Life : all that we do springs out of Mystery, 
Spirit, invisible Force; only like a little Cloud-image, 
or Armida's Palace, air-built, does the Actual body 
itself forth from the great mystic Deep. 

" Visible and tangible products of the Past, again, 
I reckon-up to the extent of three : Cities, with their 
Cabinets and Arsenals ; then tilled Fields, to either 
or to both of which divisions Roads with their 

Bridges may belong; and thirdly Books. In 

which third truly, the last invented, lies a worth far 
surpassing that of the two others. Wondrous indeed 
is the virtue of a true Book. Not like a dead city of 
stones, yearly crumbling, yearly needing repair ; 
more like a tilled field, but then a spiritual field : 
like a spiritual tree, let me rather say, it stands from 
year to year, and from age to age (we have Books 
that already number some hundred-and-fifty human 
ages) ; and yearly comes its new produce of leaves 
(Commentaries, Deductions, Philosophical, Political 
Systems ; or were it only Sermons, Pamphlets, 
Journalistic Essays) , every one of which is talismanic 
and thaumaturgic, for it can persuade men. O thou 
who art able to write a Book, which once in the two 
centuries or bftener there is a man gifted to do, envy 
not him whom they name City-builder, and inexpres- 



chap. viii. CENTRE OF INDIFFERENCE. 151 

sibly pity him whom they name Conqueror or City- 
burner ! Thou too art a Conqueror and Victor ; but 
of the true sort, namely over the Devil : thou too 
hast built what will outlast all marble and metal, and 
be a wonder-bringing City of the Mind, a Temple 
and Seminary and Prophetic Mount, whereto all 
kindreds of the Earth will pilgrim. — Fool! why 
journeyest thou wearisomely, in thy antiquarian fer- 
vor, to gaze on the stone pyramids of Geeza, or the clay 
ones of Sacchara? These stand there, as I can tell 
thee, idle and inert, looking over the Desert, foolishly 
enough, for the last three-thousand years : but canst 
thou not open thy Hebrew Bible, then, or even 
Luther's Version thereof ? " 

No less satisfactory is his sudden appearance not 
in Battle, yet on some Battle-field ; which, we soon 
gather, must be that of Wagram ; so that here, for 
once, is a certain approximation to distinctness of 
date. Omitting much, let us impart what follows : 

" Horrible enough ! A whole Marchfeld strewed 
with shell-splinters, cannon-shot, ruined tumbrils, and 
dead men and horses ; stragglers still remaining not 
so much as buried. And those red mould heaps : 
ay, there lie the Shells of Men, out of which all the 
Life and Virtue has been blown ; and now are they 
swept together, and crammed-down out of sight, like 
blown Egg-shells ! — Did Nature, when she bade the 
Donau bring down his mould-cargoes from the Carin- 
thian and Carpathian Heights, and spread them out 
here into the softest, richest level, — intend thee, O 
Marchfeld, for a corn-bearing Nursery, whereon her 
children might be nursed ; or for a Cockpit, wherein 



1 82 SARTOR RESARTUS. book n. 

they might the more commodiously be throttled 
and tattered? Were thy three broad Highways, 
meeting here from the ends of Europe, made for 
Ammunition-wagons, then? Were thy Wagrams 
and Stillfrieds but so many ready-built Casemates, 
wherein the house of Hapsburg might batter with 
artillery, and with artillery be battered? Konig 
Ottokar, amid yonder hillocks, dies under Rodolfs 
truncheon ; here Kaiser Franz falls a-swoon under 
Napoleon's : within which five centuries, to omit the 
others, how has thy breast, fair Plain, been defaced 
and defiled ! The greensward is torn-up and tram- 
pled-down ; man's fond care of it, his fruit-trees, 
hedge-rows, and pleasant dwellings, blown-away with 
gunpowder ; and the kind seedrield lies a desolate, 
hideous Place of Skulls. — Nevertheless, Nature is at 
work ; neither shall these Powder-Devilkins with 
their utmost devilry gainsay her : but all that gore 
and carnage will be shrouded-in, absorbed into 
manure ; and next year the Marchfeld will be green, 
nay greener. Thrifty unwearied Nature, ever out of 
our great waste educing some little profit of thy 
own, — how dost thou, from the very carcass of the 
Killer, bring Life for the Living ! 

" What, speaking in quite unofficial language, is 
the net-purport and upshot of war? To my own 
knowledge, for example, there dwell and toil, in the 
British village of Dumdrudge, usually some five- 
hundred souls. " From these, by certain ' Natural 
Enemies ' of the French, there are successfully 
selected, during the French war, say thirty able- 
bodied men : Dumdrudge, at her own expense, has 



chap. vin. CENTRE OF INDIFFERENCE. 183 

suckled and nursed them : she has, not without 
difficulty and sorrow, fed them up to manhood, and 
even trained them to crafts, so that one can weave, 
another build, another hammer, and the weakest can 
stand under thirty stone avoirdupois. Nevertheless, 
amid much weeping and swearing, they are selected ; 
all dressed in red ; and shipped away, at the public 
charges, some two-thousand miles, or say only to the 
south of Spain ; and fed there till wanted. And now 
to that same spot, in the south of Spain, are thirty 
similar French artisans, from a French Dumdrudge, 
in like manner wending : till at length, after infinite 
effort, the two parties come into actual juxtaposition ; 
and Thirty stands fronting Thirty, each with a gun in 
his hand. Straightway the word 'Fire! 1 is given: 
and they blow the souls out of one another ; and in 
place of sixty brisk useful craftsmen, the world has 
sixty dead carcasses, which it must bury, and anew 
shed tears for. Had these men any quarrel? Busy 
as the Devil is, not the smallest ! They lived far 
enough apart ; were the entirest strangers ; nay, in 
so wide a Universe, there was even, unconsciously, 
by Commerce, some mutual helpfulness between 
them. How then? Simpleton! their Governors 
had fallen-out ; and, instead of shooting one another, 
had the cunning to make these poor blockheads 
shoot. — Alas, so is it in Deutschland, and hitherto 
in all other lands ; still as of old, ' what devilry so- 
ever Kings do, the Greeks must pay the piper!' — 
In that fiction of the English Smollet, it is true, the 
final Cessation of War is perhaps prophetically 
shadowed forth ; where the two Natural Enemies, in 



184 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

person, take each a Tobacco-pipe, filled with Brim- 
stone ; light the same, and smoke in one another's 
faces, till the weaker gives in : but from such pre- 
dicted Peace-Era, what blood-filled trenches, and 
contentious centuries, may still divide us ! " 

Thus can the Professor, at least in lucid intervals, 
look away from his own sorrows, over the many- 
colored world, and pertinently enough note what is 
passing there. We may remark, indeed, that for the 
matter of spiritual culture, if for nothing else, per- 
haps few periods of his life were richer than this. 
Internally, there is the most momentous instructive 
Course of Practical Philosophy, with Experiments, 
going on ; towards the right comprehension of which 
his Peripatetic habits, favorable to Meditation, might 
help him rather than hinder. Externally, again, as 
he wanders to and fro, there are, if for the longing 
heart little substance, yet for the seeing eye sights 
enough : in these so boundless Travels of his, grant- 
ing that the Satanic School was even partially kept 
down, what an incredible knowledge of our Planet, 
and its Inhabitants and their Works, that is to say, of 
all knowable things, might not Teufelsdrockh acquire ! 

" I have read in most Public Libraries," says he, 
" including those of Constantinople and Samarcand : 
in most Colleges, except the Chinese Mandarin ones, 
I have studied, or seen that there was no studying. 
Unknown Languages have I oftenest gathered from 
their natural repertory, the Air, by my organ of 
Hearing; Statistics, Geographies, Topographies 
came, through the Eye, almost of their own accord. 
The ways of Man, how he seeks food, and warmth, 



chap. vin. CENTRE OF INDIFFERENCE. 185 

and Protection for himself, in most regions, are 
ocularly known to me. Like the great Hadrian, I 
meted-out much of the terraqueous Globe with a 
pair of Compasses that belonged to myself only. 

" Of great Scenes why speak? Three summer days, 
I lingered reflecting, and even composing (dichtete) , 
by the Pine-chasms of Vaucluse ; and in that clear 
Lakelet moistened my bread. I have sat under the 
Palm-trees of Tadmor; smoked a pipe among the 
ruins of Babylon. The great Wall of China I have 
seen ; and can testify that it is of gray brick, coped 
and covered with granite, and only shows second- 
rate masonry. — Great events, also, have not I wit- 
nessed? Kings sweated-down (ausgeinergelf) into 
Berlin-and-Milan Customhouse-Officers ; the World 
well won, and the World well lost ; oftenerthan once 
a hundred-thousand individuals shot (by each other) 
in one day. All kindreds and peoples and nations 
dashed together, and shifted. and shovelled into heaps, 
that they might ferment there, and in time unite. 
The birth-pangs of Democracy, wherewith convulsed 
Europe was groaning in cries that reached Heaven, 
could not escape me. 

" For great Men I have ever had the warmest pre- 
dilection ; and can perhaps boast that few such in 
this era have wholly escaped me. Great Men are the 
inspired (speaking and acting) Text of that divine 
Book of Revelations, whereof a Chapter is com- 
pleted from epoch to epoch, and by some named 
History ; to which inspired Texts your numerous 
talented men, and your innumerable untalented men, 
are the better or worse exegetic Commentaries, and 



1 86 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

wagonload of too-stupid, heretical or orthodox, 
weekly Sermons. For my study, the inspired Texts 
themselves ! Thus did not I, in very early days, 
having disguised me as tavern-waiter, stand behind 
the field-chairs, under that shady Tree at Treisnitz 
by the Jena Highway ; waiting upon the great Schiller 
and greater Goethe ; and hearing what I have not 

forgotten. For " 

But at this point the Editor recalls his prin- 
ciple of caution, some time ago laid down, and must 
suppress much. Let not the sacredness of Laurelled, 
still more, of Crowned Heads, be tampered with. 
Should we, at a future day, find circumstances altered, 
and the "time come for Publication, then may these 
glimpses into the privacy of the Illustrious be con- 
ceded ; which for the present were little better than 
treacherous, perhaps traitorous Eavesdroppings. Of 
Lord Byron, therefore, of Pope Pius, Emperor 
Tarakwang, and the " White Water-roses," (Chinese 
Carbonari) with their mysteries, no notice here! Of 
Napoleon himself we shall only, glancing from afar, 
remark that Teufelsdrockh's relation to him seems to 
have been of very varied character. At first we find 
our poor Professor on the point of being shot as a 
spy ; then taken into private conversation, even 
pinched on the ear, yet presented with no money ; 
at last indignantly dismissed, almost thrown out of 
doors, as an " Ideologist." " He himself, 1 ' says the 
Professor, " was among the completest Ideologists, 
at least Ideopraxists : in the Idea {in der Idee) he 
lived, moved and fought. The man was a Divine 
Missionary, though unconscious of it ; and preached, 



chap, viii, CENTRE OF INDIFFERENCE. 187 

through the cannon's throat, that great doctrine, La 
carriere onverte anx talens (The Tools to him that 
can handle them), which is our ultimate Political 
Evangel, wherein alone can liberty lie. Madly 
enough he preached, it is true, as Enthusiasts and 
first Missionaries are wont, with imperfect utterance, 
amid much frothy rant ; yet as articulately perhaps 
as the case admitted, Or call him, if you will, an 
American Backwoodsman, who had to fell unpene- 
trated forests, and battle with innumerable wolves, 
and did not entirely forbear strong liquor, rioting, 
and even theft ; whom, notwithstanding, the peace- 
ful Sower will follow, and, as he cuts the boundless 
harvest, bless." 

More legitimate and decisively authentic is Teufels- 
drockh's appearance and emergence (we know not 
well whence) in the solitude of the North Cape, on 
that June Midnight. He has a "light-blue Spanish 
cloak" hanging round him, as his " most commodi- 
ous, principal, indeed sole upper-garment ; " and 
stands there, on the World-promontory, looking over 
the infinite Brine, like a little blue Belfry (as we 
figure), now motionless indeed, yet ready, if stirred, 
to ring quaintest changes. 

" Silence as of death," writes he ; " for Midnight, 
even in the Arctic latitudes, has its character : noth- 
ing but the granite cliffs ruddy-tinged, the peaceable 
gurgle of that slow-heaving Polar Ocean, over which 
in the utmost North the great Sun hangs low and 
lazy, as if he too were slumbering. Yet is his cloud- 
couch wrought of crimson and cloth-of-gold ; yet 
does his light stream over the mirror of waters, like 



1 88 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

a tremulous fire-pillar, shooting downwards to the 
abyss, and hide itself under my feet. In such 
moments, Solitude also is invaluable ; for who would 
speak, or be looked on, when behind him lies all 
Europe and Africa, fast asleep, except the watchmen ; 
and before him the silent Immensity, and Palace of 
the Eternal, whereof our Sun is but a porch-lamp? 

" Nevertheless, in this solemn moment comes a 
man, or monster, scrambling from among the rock- 
hollows ; and, shaggy, huge as the Hyperborean Bear, 
hails me in Russian speech : most probably, there- 
fore, a Russian Smuggler. With courteous brevity, 
I signify my indifference to contraband trade, my 
humane intentions, yet strong wish to be private. 
In vain : the monster, counting doubtless on his 
superior stature, and minded to make sport for him- 
self, or perhaps profit, were it with murder, continues 
to advance ; ever assailing me with his importunate 
train-oil breath ; and now has advanced, till we stand 
both on the verge of the rock, the deep Sea rippling 
greedily down below. What argument will avail? 
On the thick Hyperborean, cherubic reasoning, 
seraphic eloquence were lost. Prepared for such 
extremity, I, deftly enough, whisk aside one step; 
draw out, from my interior reservoirs, a sufficient 
Birmingham Horse-pistol, and say, ' Be so obliging 
as retire, Friend {Erziehe sick zuruck, Freund), 
and with promptitude ! ' This logic even the Hyper- 
borean understands : fast enough, with apologetic, 
petitionary growl, he sidles off; and, except for suici- 
dalas well as homicidal purposes, need not return. 

" Such I hold to be the genuine use of Gunpowder: 



chap. viii. CENTRE OF INDIFFERENCE. 189 

that it makes all men alike tall. Nay, if thou be 
cooler, cleverer than I, if thou have more Mind, 
though all but no Body whatever, then canst thou 
kill me first, and art the taller. Hereby, at last, is 
the Goliath powerless, and the David resistless ; 
savage Animalism is nothing, inventive Spiritualism 
is all. 

"With respect to Duels, indeed, I have my own 
ideas. Few things, in this so surprising world, strike 
me with more surprise. Two little visual Spectra of 
men, hovering with insecure enough cohesion in the 
midst of the Unfathomable, and to dissolve therein, 
at any rate, very soon, — make pause at the distance 
of twelve paces asunder ; whirl round ; and, simul- 
taneously by the cunningest mechanism, explode one 
another into Dissolution ; and off-hand become Air, 
and Non-extant ! Deuce on it {zierdammf) , the little 
spitfires ! — Nay, I think with old Hugo von Trim- 
berg : ' God must needs laugh outright, could such a 
thing be, to see his wondrous Manikins here below. , " 

But amid these specialties, let us not forget the 
great generality, which is our chief quest here : 
How prospered the inner man of Teufelsdrockh 
under so much outward shifting? Does Legion still 
lurk in him, though repressed ; or has he exorcised 
that Devil's Brood? We can answer that the symp- 
toms continue promising. Experience is the grand 
spiritual Doctor ; and with him Teufelsdrockh has 
now been long a patient, swallowing many a bitter 
bolus. Unless our poor Friend belong to the numer- 
ous class of Incurables, which seems not likely, some 



190 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

cure will doubtless be effected. We should rather say 
that Legion, or the Satanic School, was now pretty 
well extirpated and cast out, but next to nothing 
introduced in its room ; whereby the heart remains, 
for the while, in a quiet but no comfortable state. 

" At length, after so much roasting, 1 ' thus writes 
our Autobiographer, "I was what you might name 
calcined. Pray only that it be not rather, as is the 
more frequent issue, reduced to a caput-mortuum ! 
But in any case, by mere dint of practice, I had 
grown familiar with many things. Wretchedness 
was still wretched ; but I could now partly see through 
it, and despise it. Which highest mortal, in this 
inane Existence, had I not found a Shadow-hunter, 
or Shadow-hunted ; and, when I looked through his 
brave garnitures, miserable enough? Thy wishes 
have all been sniffed aside, thought I : but what, had 
they even been all granted ! Did not the Boy Alex- 
ander weep because he had not two Planets to con- 
quer ; or a whole Solar System ; or after that, a whole 
Universe? Ach Gott, when I gazed into these Stars, 
have they not looked-down on me as if with pity, 
from their serene spaces ; like Eyes glistening with 
heavenly tears over the little lot of man ! Thousands 
of human generations, all as noisy as our own, have 
been swallowed-up of Time, and there remains no 
wreck of them any more ; and Arcturus and Orion 
and Sirius and the Pleiades are still shining in their 
courses, clear and young, as when the Shepherd first 
noted them in the plain of Shinar. Pshaw ! what is 
this paltry little Dog-cage of an Earth ; what art thou 
that sittest whining there ? Thou art still Nothing, 



chap. IX. THE EVERLASTING YEA. 191 

Nobody : true ; but who, then, is Something, Some- 
body ? For thee the Family of Man has no use ; it 
rejects thee ; thou art wholly as a dissevered limb : so 
be it ; perhaps it is better so ! " 

Too-heavy-laden Teufelsdrockh ! Yet surely his 
bands are loosening ; one day he will hurl the burden 
far from him, and bound forth free and with a 
second youth. 

" This," says our Professor, " was the Centre of 
Indifference I had now reached ; through which 
whoso travels from the Negative Pole to the Positive 
must necessarily pass." 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE EVERLASTING YEA. 

"Temptations in the Wilderness!" exclaims 
Teufelsdrockh: "Have we not all to be tried with 
such? Not so easily can the old Adam, lodged in us 
by birth, be dispossessed. Our Life is compassed 
round with Necessity ; yet is the meaning of Life 
itself no other than Freedom, than Voluntary Force : 
thus have we a warfare ; in the beginning, especially, 
a hard-fought battle. For the God-given mandate, 
Work thou in Welldoing, lies mysteriously written, in 
Promethean Prophetic Characters, in our hearts ; and 
leaves us no rest, night or day, till it be deciphered 
and obeyed ; till it burn forth, ii* our conduct, a 
visible, acted Gospel of Freedom. And as the clay- 
given mandate, Eat thou and be filled, at the same 



192 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

time persuasively proclaims itself through every 
nerve, --must not there be a confusion, a contest, 
before the better Influence can become the upper? 

" To me nothing seems more natural than that the 
Son of Man, when such God-given mandate first pro 
phetically stirs within him, and the Clay must now be 
vanquished or vanquish, — should be carried of the 
spirit into grim Solitudes, and there fronting the 
Tempter do grimmest battle with him ; defiantly setting 
him at naught, till he yield and fly. Name it as we 
choose : with or without visible Devil, whether in the 
natural Desert of rocks and sands, or in the populous 
moral .Desert of selfishness and baseness, — to such 
Temptation are we all called. Unhappy if we are not ! 
Unhappy if we are but Half-men, in whom that divine 
handwriting has never blazed forth, all-subduing, in 
true sun-splendor ; but quivers dubiously amid meaner 
lights : or smoulders, in dull pain, in darkness, under 
earthly vapors! — Our Wilderness is the wide World 
in an Atheistic Century ; our Forty Days are long 
years of suffering and fasting : nevertheless, to these 
also comes an end. Yes, to me also was given, if 
not Victory, yet the consciousness of Battle, and the 
resolve to persevere therein while life or faculty is 
left. To me also, entangled in the enchanted forests, 
demon-peopled, doleful of sight and of sound, it was 
given, after weariest wonderings, to work out my 
way into the higher sunlit slopes — of that Mountain 
which has no summit, or whose summit is in Heaven 
only!" 

He says elsewhere, under a less ambitious figure ; 
as figures are, once for all, natural to him: "Has 



chap. ix. THE EVERLASTING YEA. 193 

not thy Life been that of most sufficient men (tiichti- 
gen Manner) thou hast known in this generation? 
An outflush of foolish young Enthusiasm, like the 
first fallow-crop, wherein are as many weeds as valu- 
able herbs : this all parched away, under the Droughts 
of practical and spiritual Unbelief, as Disappointment, 
in thought and act, often-repeated gave rise to Doubt, 
and Doubt gradually settled into Denial ! If I have 
had a second-crop, and now see the perennial green- 
sward, and sit under umbrageous cedars, which defy 
all Drought (and Doubt) ; herein too, be the Heavens 
praised, I am not without examples, and even exem- 
plars.'" 

So that, for Teufelsdrockh also, there has been a 
"glorious revolution:' 1 these mad shadow-hunting 
and shadow-hunted Pilgrimings of his were but some 
purifying " Temptation in the Wilderness," before 
his apostolic work (such as it was) could begin ; 
which Temptation is now happily over, and the Devil 
once more worsted! Was "that high moment in the 
Rue de VEnfer" then, properly the turning-point of 
the battle ; when the Fiend said, Worship fne. or be 
torn in shreds ; and was answered valiantly with an 
Apage Satana? — Singular Teufelsdrockh, would 
thou hadst told thy singular story in plain words! 
But it is fruitless to look there, in those Paper-bags, 
for such. Nothing but innuendoes, figurative crotch- 
ets : a typical Shadow, fitfully wavering, prophetico- 
satiric ; no clear logical Picture. " How paint to the 
sensual eye, 1 ' asks he once, "what passes in the 
Holy-of-Holies of Man's Soul ; in what words, known 
to these profane times, speak even afar-off of the 



194 SARTOR RESARTUS. book n. 

unspeakable ? We ask in turn : Why perplex these 
times, profane as they are, with needless obscurity 
by omission and by commission? Not mystical 
only is our Professor, but whimsical ; and involves 
himself, now more than ever, in eye-bewildering 
chiaroscuro. Successive glimpses, here faithfully 
imparted, our more gifted readers must endeavor to 
combine for their own behoof. 

He says: "The hot Harmattan wind had raged 
itself out ; its howl went silent within me ; and the 
long-deafened soul could now hear. I paused in my 
wild wanderings ; and sat me down to wait, and con- 
sider ; for it was as if the hour of change drew nigh. 
I seemed to surrender, to renounce utterly, and say : 
Fly, then, false shadows of Hope ; I will chase you no 
more, I will believe you no more And ye too, hag- 
gard spectres of Fear, I care not for you ; ye too are 
all shadows and a lie. Let me rest here : for I am 
way-weary and life- weary ; I will rest here, were it 
but to die: to die or to live is alike tome; alike 
insignificant.'' 1 — And again: "Here, then, as I lay in 
that Centre of Indifference ; cast, doubtless by 
benignant upper Influence, into a healing sleep, the 
heavy dreams rolled gradually away, and I awoke to a 
new Heaven and a new Earth. The first preliminary 
moral Act, Annihilation o/ Self {Selbst-lodtmig) , had 
been happily accomplished ; and my mind's eyes 
were now unsealed, and its hands ungyved." 

Might we not also conjecture that the following 
passage refers to his Locality, during this same 
" healing sleep ; 11 that his Pilgrim-staff lies cast aside 
here, on "the high table-land; " and indeed that the 



chap. ix. THE EVERLASTING YEA. 195 

repose is already taking wholesome effect en him? 
If it were not that the tone, in some parts, has more 
of riancy, even of levity, than we could have ex- 
pected ! However, in Teufelsdrockh, there is always 
the strangest Dualism : light dancing, with guitar- 
music, will be going on in the fore-court, while by fits 
from within comes the faint whimpering of woe and 
wail. We transcribe the piece entire. 

" Beautiful it was to sit there, as in my skyey 
Tent, musing and meditating ; on the high table-land, 
in front of the Mountains ; over me, as roof, the 
azure Dome, and around me, for walls, four azure- 
flowing curtains, — namely, of the Four azure Winds, 
on whose bottom-fringes also I have seen gilding. 
And then to fancy the fair Castles that stood sheltered 
in these Mountain hollows ; with their green flower- 
lawns, and white dames and damosels, lovely enough : 
or better still, the straw-roofed Cottages, wherein 
stood many a Mother, baking bread, with her children 
round her : — all hidden and protectingly folded-up 
in the valley-folds ; yet there and alive, as sure 
as if I beheld them. Or to see, as well as fancy, 
the nine Towns and Villages, that lay round my 
mountain-seat, which, in still weather, were wont to 
speak to me (by their steeple-bells) with metal 
tongue ; and, in almost all weather, proclaimed their 
vitality by repeated Smoke-clouds ; whereon, as on 
a culinary horologe, I might read the hour of the day. 
For it was the smoke of cookery, as kind housewives 
at morning, midday, eventide, were boiling their 
husbands' kettles ; and ever a blue pillar rose up into 
the air, successively or simultaneously, from each of 



196 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

the nine, saying, as plainly as smoke could say : Such 
and such a meal is getting ready here. Not unin- 
teresting ! For you have the whole Borough, with all 
its love-makings and scandal-mongeries, contentions 
and contentments, as in miniature, and could cover 
it all with your hat. — If, in my wide Wayfarings, 
T had learned to look into the business of the World 
in its details, here perhaps was the place for combin- 
ing it into general propositions, and deducing infer- 
ences therefrom. 

"Often also could I see the black Tempest march- 
ing in anger through the Distance : round some 
Schreckhorn, as yet grim-blue, would the eddying 
vapor gather, and there tumultuously eddy, and flow 
down like a mad witch's hair ; till, after a space, it 
vanished, and, in the clear sunbeam, your Schreck- 
horn stood smiling grim-white, for the vapor had 
held snow. How thou fermentest and elaboratest, in 
thy great fermenting-vat and laboratory of an Atmos- 
phere, of a World, O Nature ! — Or what is Nature? 
Ha ! why do I not name thee God ? Art not thou the 
'Living Garment of God 1 ? O Heavens, is it, in 
very deed, He, then, that ever speaks through thee ; 
that lives and loves in thee, that lives and loves in 



me 



"Fore-shadows, call them rather fore-splendors, 
of that Truth, and Beginning of Truths, fell myste- 
riously over my soul. Sweeter than Dayspring to the 
Shipwrecked in Nova Zembla ; ah, like the mother's 
voice to her little child that strays bewildered, weep- 
ing, in unknown tumults ; like soft streamings of celes- 
tial music to my too-exasperated heart, came that 



chap. ix. THE EVERLASTING YEA. 197 

Evangel. The Universe is not dead and demoniacal, 
a charnel-house with spectres ; but god-like, and my 
Father's ! 

" With other eyes, too, could I now look upon my 
fellow man : with an infinite Love, an infinite Pity- 
Poor, wandering, wayward man ! Art thou not tried, 
and beaten with stripes, even as I am? Ever, whether 
thou bear the royal mantle or the beggar's gabardine, 
art thou not so weary, so heavy-laden ; and thy Bed 
of Rest is but a Grave. O my Brother, my Brother, 
why cannot I shelter thee in my bosom, and wipe 
away all tears from thy eyes ! — truly, the din of 
many-voiced Life, which, in this solitude, with the 
mind's organ, I could hear, was no longer a madden- 
ing discord, but a melting one ; like inarticulate cries, 
and sobbings of a dumb creature, which in the ear of 
Heaven are prayers. The poor Earth, with her poor 
joys, was now my needy Mother, not my cruel Step- 
dame ; Man, with his so mad Wants and so mean En- 
deavors, had become the dearer to me ; and even 
for his sufferings and his sins, I now first named him 
Brother. Thus was I standing in the porch of that 
' Sanctuary of Sorrow ;' by strange, steep ways had 
I too been guided thither ; and ere long its sacred 
gates would open, and the 'Divine Depth of Sor- 
row" 1 lie disclosed to me." 

The Professor says, he here first got eye on the 
Knot that had been strangling him, and straightway 
could unfasten it, and was free. " A vain intermin- 
able controversy," writes he, " touching what is at 
present called Origin of Evil, or some such thing, 
arises in every soul, since the beginning of the world ; 



198 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

and in every soul, that would pass from idle Suffering 
into actual Endeavoring, must first be put an end to. 
The most, in our time, have to go content with a 
simple, incomplete enough Suppression of this con- 
troversy ; to a few some Solution of it is indispens- 
able. In every new era, too, such Solution comes-out 
in different terms ; and ever the Solution of the last 
era has become obsolete, and is found unserviceable. 
For it is man's nature to change his Dialect from cen- 
tury to century ; he cannot help it though he would. 
The authentic Church-Catechism of our present cen- 
tury has not yet fallen into my hands : meanwhile, 
for my own private behoof, I attempt to elucidate the 
matter so. Man's Unhappiness, as I construe, comes 
of his Greatness ; it is because there is an Infinite in 
him, which with all his cunning he cannot quite bury 
under the Finite. Will the whole Finance Ministers 
and Upholsterers and Confectioners of modern 
Europe undertake, in joint-stock company, to make 
one Shoeblack happy? They cannot accomplish it, 
above an hour or two : for the Shoeblack also has a 
Soul quite other than his Stomach ; and would re- 
quire, if you consider it, for his permanent satisfac- 
tion and saturation, simply this allotment, no more, 
and no less ; Gocfs infinite Universe altogether to 
himself, therein to enjoy infinitely, and fill every wish 
as fast as it rose. Oceans of Hochheimer, a Throat 
like that of Ophiuchus : speak not of them ; to the 
infinite Shoeblack they are as nothing. No sooner 
is your ocean filled, than he grumbles that it might 
have been of better vintage. Try him with half of 
a Universe, of an Omnipotence, he sets to quarrelling 



chap. ix. THE EVERLASTING YEA. 199 

with the proprietor of the other half, and declares him- 
self the most maltreated of men. — Always there is a 
black spot in our sunshine : it is even, as I said, the 
Shadow of Ourselves. 

" But the whim we have of Happiness is somewhat 
thus. By certain valuations, and averages, of our 
own striking, we come upon some sort of average ter- 
restrial lot ; this we fancy belongs to us by nature, 
and of indefeasible right. It is simple payment of 
our wages, of our deserts ; requires neither thanks 
nor complaint ; only such overplus as there may be 
do we account Happiness ; any deficit again is Misery. 
Now consider that we have the valuation of our own 
deserts ourselves, and what a fund of Self-conceit 
there is in each of us, — do you wonder that the bal- 
ance should so often dip the wrong way, and many a 
Blockhead cry : See there, what a payment ; was ever 
worthy gentleman so used ! — I tell thee, Blockhead, 
it all comes of thy Vanity ; of what thou fanciest 
those same deserts of thine to be. Fancy that thou 
deservest to be hanged (as is most likely), thou wilt 
feel it happiness to be only shot : fancy that thou de- 
servest to be hanged in a hair-halter, it will be a lux- 
ury to die in hemp. 

" So true is it, what I then said, that the Fractlojt 
of Life can be Increased In value not so much by in- 
creasing your Numerator as by lessening your Denomi- 
nator. Nay, unless my Algebra deceive me, Unity 
itself divided by Zero will give Infinity. Make thy 
claim of wages a zero, then ; thou hast the world 
under thy feet. Well did the Wisest of our time 
write : * It is only with Renunciation (Entsagen) 
that Life, properly speaking, can be said to begin. 1 



200 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

" I asked myself: What is this that, ever since ear- 
liest years, thou hast been fretting and fuming, and 
iamenting and self-tormenting, on account of ? Say 
it in a word : is it not because thou art not happy ? 
Because the thou (sweet gentleman) is not suffi- 
ciently honored, nourished, soft-bedded, and lovingly 
cared-for ? Foolish soul ! What Act of Legislature was 
there that thou shouldst be Happy ? A little while ago 
thou hadst no right to be at all. What if thou wert 
born and predestined not to be Happy, but to be 
Unhappy ! Art thou nothing other than a Vulture, 
then, that fliest through the Universe seeking after 
somewhat to eat ; and shrieking dolefully because car- 
rion enough is not given thee ? Close thy Byron ; open 
thy Goethe P 

" Es leuchtet mir ein, I see a glimpse of it ! " cries 
he elsewhere : " there is in man a Higher than Love 
of Happiness : he can do without Happiness, and in- 
stead thereof find Blessedness ! Was it not to preach- 
forth this same Higher that sages and martyrs, the 
Poet and the Priest, in all times, have spoken and 
suffered ; bearing testimony, through life and through 
death, of the Godlike that is in Man, and how in the 
Godlike only has he Strength and Freedom ? Which 
God-inspired Doctrine art thou also honored to be 
taught : O Heavens ! and broken with manifold mer- 
ciful Afflictions, even till thou become contrite, and 
learn it ! O, thank thy Destiny for these ; thankfully 
bear what yet remain : thou hadst need of them ; the 
Self in thee needed to be annihilated. By benignant 
fever-paroxysms is Life rooting out the deep-seated 
chronic Disease, and triumphs over Death. On the 



chap. ix. THE EVERLASTING YEA. 20 1 

roaring billows of Time, thou art not ingulfed, but 
borne aloft into the azure of Eternity. Love not 
Pleasure ; love God. This is the Everlasting Yea, 
wherein all contradiction is solved : wherein whoso 
walks and works, it is well with him.'" 

And again: " Small is it that thou canst trample 
the Earth with its injuries under thy feet, as old 
Greek Zeno trained thee : thou canst love the Earth 
while it injures thee, and even because it injures thee ; 
for this a Greater than Zeno was needed, and he 
too was sent. Knowest thou that ' Worship of 
Sorrow ' t The Temple thereof, founded some eigh- 
teen centuries ago, now lies in ruins, overgrown with 
jungle, the habitation of doleful creatures : neverthe- 
less, venture forward ; in a low crypt, arched out of 
falling fragments, thou findest the Altar still there, 
and its sacred Lamp perennially burning." 

Without pretending to comment on which strange 
utterances, the Editor will only remark, that there 
lies beside them much of a still more questionable 
character ; unsuited to the general apprehension ; 
nay wherein he himself does not see his way. Neb- 
ulous disquisitions on Religion, yet not without 
bursts of splendor; on the "perennial continuance 
of Inspiration; " on Prophecy; that there are "true 
Priests, as well as Baal-Priests, in our own day : ,J 
with more of the like sort. We select some fractions, 
by way of finish to this farrago. 

" Cease, my much-respected Herr von Voltaire, 1 ' 
thus apostrophizes the Professor: "shut thy sweet 
voice ; for the task appointed thee seems finished. 
Sufficiently hast thou demonstrated this proposition, 



202 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

f considerable or otherwise: That the Mythus of the 
' Christian Religion looks not in the eighteenth cen- 
tury as it did in the eighth. Alas, were thy six-and- 
thirty quartos, and the six-and-thirty thousand other 
quartos and folios, and flying sheets or reams, printed 
before and since on the same subject, all needed to 
convince us of so little ! But what next ? Wilt thou 
help us to embody the divine Spirit of that Religion 
in a new Mythus, in a new vehicle and vesture, that 
our Souls, otherwise too like perishing, may live? 
What! thou hast no faculty in that kind? Only a 
torch for burning, no hammer for building? Take 
our thanks, then, and thyself away. 

" Meanwhile what are antiquated Mythuses to me? 
Or is the God present, felt in my own heart, a thing 
which Herr von Voltaire will dispute out of me ; or 
dispute into me ? To the ' Worship of Sorrow ' 
ascribe what origin and genesis thou pleasest, has 
not that Worship originated, and been generated ; is 
it not here? Feel it in thy heart, and then say 
whether it is of God! This is Belief; all else is 
Opinion, — for which latter whoso will, let him worry 
and be worried." 

" Neither,' 1 observes he elsewhere, " shall ye tear- 
out one another's eyes, struggling over ' Plenary 
Inspiration,' and suchlike : try rather to get a little 
even Partial Inspiration, each of you for himself. 
One Bible I know, of whose Plenary Inspiration 
doubt is not so much as possible ; nay with my own 
eyes I saw the God's-Hand writing it : thereof all 
other Bibles are but Leaves, — say, in Picture- Writ- 
ing to assist the weaker faculty." 



chap. ix. THE EVERLASTING YEA. 203 

Or, to give the wearied reader relief, and bring it 
to an end, let him take the following perhaps more 
intelligible passage : 

" To me, in this our life, 11 says the Professor, 
"which is an internecine warfare with the Time- 
spirit, other warfare seems questionable. Hast thou 
in any way a Contention with thy brother, I advise 
thee, think well what the meaning thereof is. If thou 
gauge it to the bottom, it is simply this : ' Fellow, 
see ! thou art taking more than thy share of Happi- 
ness in the world, something from my share : which, 
by the Heavens, thou shalt not ; nay I will fight thee 
rather. 1 — Alas, and the whole lot to be divided is 
such a beggarly matter, truly a ' feast of shells,' for 
the substance has been spilled out : not enough to 
quench one Appetite ; and the collective human spe- 
cies clutching at them ! — Can we not, in all such 
cases, rather say: 'Take it, thou too-ravenous indi- 
vidual ; take that pitiful additional fraction of a share, 
which I reckoned mine, but which thou so wantest ; 
take it with a blessing : would to Heaven I had 
enough for thee ! ' — If Fichte 1 s Wissenschaftslehre 
be, ' to a certain extent, Applied Christianity,' surely 
to a still greater extent, so is this. We have here 
not a Whole Duty of Man, yet a Half Duty, namely 
the Passive half: could we but do it, as we can de- 
monstrate it ! 

" But indeed Conviction, were it never so excellent, 
is worthless till it convert itself into Conduct. Nay 
properly Conviction is not possible till then ; inas- 
much as all Speculation is by nature endless, form- 
less, a vortex amid vortices : only by a felt indubit- 



204 SARTOR RESARTUS. book II. 

able certainty of Experience does it find any centre 
to revolve round, and so fashion itself into a system. 
Most true is it, as a wise man teaches us, that ' Doubt 
of any sort cannot be removed except by Action.' 
On which ground, too, let him who gropes painfully 
in darkness or uncertain light, and prays vehemently 
that the dawn may ripen into day, lay this other pre- 
cept well to heart, which to me was of invaluable 
service : ' Do the Duty which lies nearest thee,'' which 
thou knowest to be a Duty ! Thy second Duty will 
already have become clearer. 

" May we not say, however, that the hour of Spirit- 
ual Enfranchisement is even this : When your Idea* 
World, wherein the whole man has been dimly 
struggling and inexpressibly languishing to work, 
becomes revealed, and thrown open ; and you dis- 
cover, with amazement enough, like the Lothario in 
Wilhelm Meister, that your ' America is here or no- 
where ' ? The Situation that has not its Duty, its 
Ideal, was never yet occupied by man. Yes here, in 
this poor, miserable, hampered, despicable Actual, 
wherein thou even now standest, here or nowhere is 
thy Ideal : work it out therefrom ; and working, 
believe, live, be free. Fool ! the Ideal is in thyself, 
the impediment too is in thyself: thy Condition is 
but the stuff" thou art to shape that same Ideal out of : 
what matters whether such stuff" be of this sort or 
that, so the Form thou give it be heroic, be poetic? 
O thou that pinest in the imprisonment of the Actual, 
and criest bitterly to the gods for a kingdom wherein 
to rule and create, know this of a truth : the thing 
thou seekest is already with thee, ' here or nowhere,' 
couldst thou only see ! 



chap. x. PAUSE. 205 

" But it is with man's Soul as it was with Nature : 
the beginning of Creation is — Light. Till the eye 
have vision, the whole members are in bonds. Di- 
vine moment, when over the tempest-tost Soul, as 
once over the wild-weltering Chaos, it is spoken : Let 
there be Light ! Ever to the greatest that has felt 
such moment, is it not miraculous and God-announ- 
cing; even as, under simpler figures, to the simplest 
and least. The mad primeval Discord is hushed ; 
the rudely-jumbled conflicting elements bind them- 
selves into separate Firmaments : deep silent rock- 
foundations are built beneath ; and the skyey vault 
with its everlasting Luminaries above : instead of a 
dark wasteful Chaos, we have a blooming, fertile, 
heaven-encompassed World. 

" I too could now say to myself: Be no longer a 
Chaos, but a World, or even Worldkin. Produce! 
Produce ! Were it but the pitifullest infinitesimal 
fraction of a Product, produce it, in God's name ! 
'T is the utmost thou hast in thee : out with it, then. 
Up, up ! Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it 
with thy whole might. Work while it is called To- 
day ; for the Night cometh, wherein no man can 
work." 



CHAPTER X. 

PAUSE. 

Thus have we, as closely and perhaps satisfactorily 
as, in such circumstances, might be, followed Teu- 



206 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ir. 

felsdrockh through the various successive states and 
stages of Growth, Entanglement, Unbelief, and al- 
most Reprobation, into a certain clearer state of what 
he himself seems to consider as Conversion. " Blame 
not the word," says he ; " rejoice rather that such a 
word, signifying such a thing, has come to light in 
our modern Era, though hidden from the wisest 
Ancients. The Old World knew nothing of Conver- 
sion ; instead of an Ecce Homo, they had only some 
Choice of Hercules. It was a new-attained progress 
in the Moral Development of man : hereby has the 
Highest come home to the bosoms of the most Lim- 
ited ; what to Plato was but a hallucination, and to 
Socrates a chimera, is now clear and certain to your 
Zinzendorfs, your Wesleys, and the poorest of their 
Pietists and Methodists. 11 

It is here, then, that the spiritual majority of Teu- 
felsdrockh commences : we are henceforth to see 
him "work in well-doing, 11 with the spirit and clear 
aims of a Man. He has discovered that the Ideal 
Workshop he so panted for is even this same 
Actual ill-furnished Workshop he has so long been 
stumbling in. He can say to himself: "Tools? 
Thou hast no Tools? Why, there is not a Man, or 
a Thing, now alive but has tools. The basest of 
created animalcules, the Spider itself, has a spinning- 
jenny, and warping-mill, and power-loom within its 
head : the stupidest of Oysters has a PapinVDi- 
gester, with stone-and-lime house to hold it in : 
every being that can live can do something : this let 
him do. — Tools? Hast thou not a Brain, furnished, 
furnishable with some glimmerings of Light ; and 



chap. x. PAUSE. 207 

three fingers to hold a Pen withal? Never since 
Aaron's Rod went out of practice, or even before it, 
was there such a wonder-working Tool : greater than 
all recorded miracles have been performed by Pens. 
For strangely in this so solid-seeming World, which 
nevertheless is in continual restless flux, it is ap- 
pointed that Sound, to appearance the most fleeting, 
should be the most continuing of all things. The 
Word is well said to be omnipotent in this world ; 
man, thereby divine, can create as by a Fiat. Awake, 
arise ! Speak forth what is in thee ; what God has 
given thee, what the Devil shall not take away. 
Higher task than that of Priesthood was allotted to 
no man : wert thou but the meanest in that sacred 
Hierarchy, is it not honor enough therein to spend 
and be spent? 

" By this Art, which whoso will may sacrilegiously 
degrade into a handicraft," adds Teufelsdrockh, 
"have I thenceforth abidden. Writings of mine, 
not indeed known as mine (for what am If), have 
fallen, perhaps not altogether void, into the mighty 
seed-field of Opinion ; fruits of my unseen sowing, 
gratify ingly meet me here and there. I thank the 
Heavens that I have now found my Calling ; wherein, 
with or without perceptible result, I am minded dili- 
gently to persevere. 

" Nay how knowest thou," cries he, " but this and 
the other pregnant Device, now grown to be a world- 
renowned far-working Institution ; like a grain of 
right mustard-seed once cast into the right soil, and 
now stretching-out strong boughs to the four winds, 
for the birds of the air to lodge in, — may have been 



208 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

properly my doing? Some one's doing, it without 
aoubt was ; from some Idea, in some single Head, it 
did first of all take beginning : why not from some 
Idea in mine? " Does Teufelsdrockh here glance at 
that " Society for the Conservation of Prop- 
erty {EigentJiiims-conservirende GesellscJiaft) ," of 
which so many ambiguous notices glide spectre-like 
through these inexpressible Paper-bags? "An In- 
stitution," hints he, " not unsuitable to the wants of 
the time ; as indeed such sudden extension proves : 
for already can the Society number, among its 
office-bearers or corresponding members, the highest 
Names, if not the highest Persons, in Germany, Eng- 
gland, France ; and contributions, both of money 
and of meditation, pour in from all quarters ; to, if 
possible, enlist the remaining Integrity of the world, 
and, defensively and with forethought, marshal it 
round this Palladium." Does Teufelsdrockh mean, 
then, to give himself out as the originator of that so 
notable Eigenthums-conservirende (" Owndom-con- 
serving") GesellscJiaft ; and if so, what, in the 
Devil's name, is it? He again hints: " At a time 
when the divine Commandment, TJiou shall not steal, 
wherein truly, if well understood, is comprised the 
whole Hebrew Decalogue, with Solon's and Lycur- 
gus's Constitutions, Justinian's Pandects, the Code 
Napoleon, and all Codes, Catechisms, Divinities, 
Moralities whatsoever, that man has hitherto devised 
(and enforced with Altar-fire and Gallows-ropes) for 
his social guidance : at a time, I say, when this di- 
vine Commandment has ail-but faded away from the 
general remembrance ; and, with little disguise, a 



chap.x. PAUSE. 209 

new opposite Commandment, Thou shalt steal, is 
everywhere promulgated, — it perhaps behoved, in 
this universal dotage and deliration, the sound por- 
tion of mankind to bestir themselves and rally. 
When the widest and wildest violations of that divin? 
right of Property, the only divine right now extant 
or conceivable, are sanctioned and recommended 
by a vicious Press, and the world has lived to hear 
it asserted that we have no Property in our very 
Bodies, but only an accidental Possession and Life- 
rent, what is the issue to be looked for? Hang- 
men and Catchpoles may, by their noose-gins and 
baited fall-traps, keep down the smaller sort of ver- 
min ; but what, except perhaps some such Universal 
Association, can protect us against whole meat-de- 
vouring and man-devouring hosts of Boa-constric- 
tors? If, therefore, the more sequestered Thinker 
have wondered, in his privacy, from what hand 
that perhaps not ill-written Progra?n in the Pub- 
lic Journals, with its high Prize- Questions and so 
liberal Prizes, could have proceeded, — let him now 
cease such wonder ; and, with undivided faculty, 
betake himself to the Concurrenz (Competition)." 
We ask : Has this same ' ' perhaps not ill-written 
Program," or any other authentic Transaction of that 
Property-conserving Society, fallen under the eye of 
the British Reader, in any Journal foreign or domes- 
tic? If so, what are those Prize-Questions ; what are 
the terms of Competition, and when and where? 
No printed Newspaper-leaf, no farther light of any 
sort, to be met with in these Paper-bags ! Or is the 
whole business one other of those whimsicalities and 



210 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

perverse inexplicabilities, whereby Herr Teufels- 
drockh, meaning much or nothing, is pleased so 
often to play fast-and-loose with us ? 

Here, indeed, at length, must the Editor give 
utterance to a painful suspicion, which, through late 
Chapters, has begun to haunt him ; paralyzing any 
little enthusiasm that might still have rendered his 
thorny Biographical task a labor of love. It is a 
suspicion grounded perhaps on trifles, yet confirmed 
almost into certainty by the more and more dis- 
cernible humoristico-satirical tendency of Teufels- 
drockh, in whom underground humors and intricate 
sardonic rogueries, wheel within wheel, defy all 
reckoning : a suspicion, in one word, that these 
Autobiographical Documents are partly a mystifica- 
tion ! What if many so-called Fact were little better 
than a Fiction ; if here we had no direct Camera- 
obscura Picture of the Professor's History ; but only 
some more or less fantastic Adumbration, symboli- 
cally, perhaps significantly enough, shadowing-forth 
the same ! Our theory begins to be that, in receiv- 
ing as literally authentic what was but hieroglyphically 
so, Hofrath Heuschrecke, whom in that case we 
scruple not to name Hofrath Nose-of-Wax, was 
made a fool of, and set adrift to make fools of others. 
Could it be expected, indeed, that a man so known 
for impenetrable reticence as Teufelsdrockh, would 
all at once frankly unlock his private citadel to an 
English Editor and a German Hofrath ; and not 
rather deceptively zVzlock both Editor and Hofrath in 
the labyrinthic tortuosities and covered-ways of said 



CHAP. X. PAUSE. 211 

citadel (having enticed them thither), to see, in his 
half-devilish way, how the fools would look? 

Of one fool, however, the Herr Professor will per- 
haps find himself short. On a small slip, formerly 
thrown aside as blank, the ink being ail-but invisible, 
we lately notice, and with effort decipher, the follow- 
ing: "What are your historical Facts; still more 
your biographical? Wilt thou know a Man, above 
all a Mankind, by stringing-together beadrolls of 
what thou namest Facts ? The Man is the spirit he 
worked in ; not what he did, but what he became. 
Facts are engraved Hierograms, for which the fewest 
have the key. And then how your Blockhead 
(Dummkopf) studies not their Meaning ; but simply 
whether they are well or ill cut, what he calls Moral 
or Immoral ! Still worse is it with your Bungler 
{Pfuscher) : such I have seen reading some Rousseau, 
with pretences of interpretation ; and mistaking the 
ill-cut Serpent-of-Eternity for a common poisonous 
reptile." Was the Professor apprehensive lest an 
Editor, selected as the present boasts himself, might 
mistake the Teufelsdrockh Serpent-of-Eternity in 
like manner? For which reason it was to be altered, 
not without underhand satire, into a plainer Symbol? 
Or is this merely one of his half-sophisms, half- 
truisms, which if he can but set on the back of a 
Figure, he cares not whither it gallop? We say not 
with certainty ; and indeed, so strange is the Pro- 
fessor, can never say. If our suspicion be wholly 
unfounded, let his own questionable ways, not our 
necessary circumspectness, bear the blame. 

But be this as it will, the somewhat exasperated 



212 SAX TOR RESARTUS. book it. 

and indeed exhausted Editor determines here to 
shut these Paper-bags for the present. Let it suffice 
that we know of Teufelsdrockh, so far, if " not what 
he did, yet what he became : " the rather, as his 
character has now taken its ultimate bent, and no 
new revolution, of importance, is to be looked for. 
The imprisoned Chrysalis is now a winged Psyche : 
and such, wheresoever be its flight, it will continue. 
To trace by what complex gyrations (flights or in- 
voluntary waftings) through the mere external Life 
element, Teufelsdrockh reaches his University Pro- 
fessorship, and the Psyche clothes herself in civic 
Titles, without altering her now fixed nature, — 
would be comparatively an unproductive task, were 
we even unsuspicious of its being, for us at least, a 
false and impossible one. His outward Biography, 
therefore, which, at the Blumine Lover's-Leap, we 
saw churned utterly into spray- vapor, may hover in 
that condition, for aught that concerns us here. 
Enough that by survey of certain " pools and 
plashes,' 1 we have ascertained its general direction ; 
do we not already know that, by one way and other, 
it has long since rained-down again into a stream ; 
and even now, at Weissnichtwo, flows deep and still, 
fraught with the Philosophy of Clothes, and visible to 
whoso will cast eye thereon? Over much invaluable 
matter, that lies scattered, like jewels among quarry- 
rubbish, in those Paper-catacombs, we may have 
occasion to glance back, and somewhat will demand 
insertion at the right place : meanwhile be our tire- 
some diggings therein suspended. 

If now, before reopening the great Clothes- Volume, 



chap. x. PAUSE. 213 

we ask what our degree of progress, during these 
Ten Chapters, has been, towards right understanding 
of the Clothes-Philosophy , let not our discouragement 
become total. To speak in that old figure of the 
Hell-gate Bridge over Chaos, a few flying pontoons 
have perhaps been added, though as yet they drift 
straggling on the Flood ; how far they will reach, 
when once the chains are straightened and fastened, 
can, at present, only be matter of conjecture. 

So much we already calculate : Through many a 
little loop-hole, we have had glimpses inio the inter- 
nal world of Teufelsdrockh ; his strange mystic, 
almost magic Diagram of the Universe, and how it 
was gradually drawn, is not henceforth altogether 
dark to us. Those mysterious ideas on Time, which 
merit consideration, and are not wholly unintelligi- 
ble with such, may by and by prove significant. Still 
more may his somewhat peculiar view of Nature, 
the decisive Oneness he ascribes to Nature. How 
all Nature and Life are but one Garment, a " Living 
Garment, 1 ' woven and ever aweaviner in the " Loom of 
Time ; " is not here, indeed, the outline of a whole 
Clothes-Philosophy ; at least the arena it is to work 
in? Remark, too, that the Character of the Man, 
nowise without meaning in such a matter, becomes 
less enigmatic : amid so much tumultuous obscurity, 
almost like diluted madness, do not a certain indom- 
itable Defiance and yet a boundless Reverence seem 
to loom forth, as the two mountain-summits, on 
whose rock-strata all the rest were based and built? 

Nay further, may we not say that Teufelsdrockh's 
Biography, allowing it even, as suspected, only a 



214 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ii. 

hieroglyphical truth, exhibits a man, as it were pre- 
appointed for Clothes-Philosophy? To look through 
the Shows of things into Things themselves he is 
led and compelled. The " Passivity " given him by 
birth is fostered by all turns of his fortune. Every- 
where cast out, like oil out of water, from mingling in 
any Employment, in any public Communion, he has 
no portion but Solitude, and a life of Meditation. The 
whole energy of his existence is directed, through 
long years, on one task : that of enduring pain, if he 
cannot cure it. Thus everywhere do the Shows of 
things oppress him, withstand him, threaten him with 
fearfullest destruction : only by victoriously pene- 
trating into Things themselves can he find peace and 
a stronghold. But is not this same looking-through 
the Shows, or Vestures, into the Things, even the 
first preliminary to a Philosophy of Clothes ? Do we 
not, in all this, discern some beckonings towards the 
true higher purport of such a Philosophy ; and what 
shape it must assume with such a man, in such an 
era? 

Perhaps in entering on Book Third, the courteous 
Reader is not utterly without guess whither he is 
bound : nor, let us hope, for all the fantastic Dream- 
Grottoes through which, as is our lot with Teu- 
felsdrockh, he must wander, will there be wanting 
between whiles some twinkling of a steady Polar Stan 



BOOK THIRD. 



CHAPTER I. 

INCIDENT IN MODERN HISTORY. 

As a wonder-loving and wonder-seeking man, 
Teufelsdrockh, from an early part of this Clothes- 
Volume, has more and more exhibited himself. 
Striking it was, amid all his perverse cloudiness, 
with what force of vision and of heart he pierced 
into the mystery of the World ; recognizing in the 
highest sensible phenomena, so far as Sense went, 
only fresh or faded Raiment ; yet ever, under this, 
a celestial Essence thereby rendered visible : and 
while, on the one hand, he trod the old rags of Mat- 
ter, with their tinsels, into the mire, he on the other 
everywhere exalted Spirit above all earthly principali- 
ties and powers, and worshipped it, though under 
the meanest shapes, with a true Platonic mysticism. 
What the man ultimately purposed by thus casting 
his Greek-fire into the general Wardrobe of the 
Universe ; what such, more or less complete, rending 
and burning of Garments, throughout the whole 
compass of Civilized Life and Speculation, should 
lead to ; the rather as he was no Adamite, in any 
sense, and could not, like Rousseau, recommend 

2I 5 



216 SARTOR RESARTUS. book hi. 

either bodily or intellectual Nudity, and a return to 
the savage state : all this our readers are now bent 
to discover ; this is, in fact, properly the gist and 
purport of Professor Teufelsdrockh's Philosophy of 
Clothes. 

Be it remembered, however, that such purport is 
here not so much evolved, as detected to lie ready 
for evolving. We are to guide our British Friends 
into the new Gold-country, and show them the mines ; 
nowise to dig-out and exhaust its wealth, which in- 
deed remains for all time inexhaustible. Once there, 
let each dig for his own behoof, and enrich himself. 

Neither, in so capricious inexpressible a Work as 
this of the Professors, can our course now more than 
formerly be straightforward, step by step, but at best 
leap by leap. Significant Indications stand-out here 
and there ; which for the critical eye, that looks 
both widely and narrowly, shape themselves into 
some ground-scheme of a Whole : to select these 
with judgment, so that a leap from one to the other 
be possible, and (in our old figure) by chaining them 
together, a passable Bridge be effected : this, as 
heretofore, continues our only method. Among 
such light-spots, the following, floating in much wild 
matter about Pe?'f edibility , has seemed worth clutch- 
ing at : 

" Perhaps the most remarkable incident in Modern 
History, 1 ' says Teufelsdrockh, "is not the Diet of 
Worms, still less the Battle of Austerlitz, Waterloo, 
Peterloo, or any other Battle ; but an incident passed 
carelessly over by most Historians, and treated with 
some degree of ridicule by others : namely, George 



chap. I. INCIDENT IN MODERN HIS TOR Y. 217 

Fox's making to himself a suit of Leather. This 
man, the first of the Quakers, and by trade a Shoe- 
maker, was one of those, to whom, under ruder or 
purer form, the Divine Idea of the Universe is pleased 
to manifest itself; and, across all the hulls of Ignor- 
ance and earthly Degradation, shine through, in 
unspeakable Awfulness, unspeakable Beauty, on their 
souls: who therefore are rightly accounted Prophets, 
God-possessed ; or even Gods, as in some periods it 
has chanced. Sitting in his stall ; working on tanned 
hides, amid pincers, paste-horns, rosin, swine-bristles, 
and a nameless flood of rubbish, this youth had, 
nevertheless, a Living Spirit belonging to him'; also 
an antique Inspired Volume, through which, as 
through a window, it could look upwards, and discern 
its celestial Home. The task of a daily pair of 
shoes, coupled even with some prospect of victuals, 
and an honorable Mastership in Cordwainery, and 
perhaps the post of Thirdborough in his hundred, 
as the crown of long faithful sewing, — was nowise 
satisfaction enough to such a mind : but ever amid 
the boring and hammering came tones from that far 
country, came Splendors and Terrors ; for this poor 
Cordwainer, as we said, was a Man ; and the Temple 
of Immensity, wherein as Man he had been sent to 
minister, was full of holy mystery to him. 

" The Clergy of the neighborhood, the ordained 
Watchers and Interpreters of that same holy mystery, 
listened with unaffected tedium to his consultations, 
and advised him, as the solution of such doubts, to 
' drink beer and dance with the girls. 1 Blind leaders 
of the blind ! For what end were their tithes levied and 



218 SARTOR RESARTUS. book hi. 

eaten ; for what were their shovel-hats scooped out, 
and their surplices and cassock-aprons girt-on ; and 
such a church-repairing, and chaffering, and organ- 
ing, and other racketing, held over that spot of God's 
Earth, — if Man were but a Patent Digester, and 
the Belly with its adjuncts the grand Reality? Fox 
turned from them, with tears and a sacred scorn, back 
to his Leather-parings and his Bible. Mountains, of 
encumbrance, higher than ^Etna, had been heaped 
over that Spirit : but it was a Spirit, and would not 
lie buried there. Through long days and nights of 
silent agony, it struggled and wrestled, with a man's 
force, to be free : how its prison-mountains heaved 
and swayed tumultuously, as the giant spirit shook 
them to this hand and that, and emerged into the 
light of Heaven ! That Leicester shoeshop, had men 
known it, was a holier place than any Vatican or 
Loretto-shrine. — ' So bandaged, and hampered, and 
hemmed in, 1 groaned he, ' with thousand requisitions, 
obligations, straps, tatters, and tagrags, I can neither 
see nor move : not my own am I, but the World's ; 
and Time flies fast, and Heaven is high, and Hell is 
deep : Man ! bethink thee, if thou hast power of 
Thought ! Why not ; what binds me here ? Want, 
want!— Ha, of what? Will all the shoe-wages un- 
der the Moon ferry me across into that far Land of 
Light? Only Meditation can, and devout Prayer to 
God. I will to the woods : the hollow of a tree will 
lodge me, wild-berries feed me ; and for Clothes, 
cannot I stitch myself one perennial suit of 
Leather ! ' 

"Historical Oil-painting," continues Teufelsdrdckh, 



chap. L INCIDENT IN MODERN HIS TOR Y. 219 

' ' is one of the Arts I never practised ; therefore 
shall I not decide whether this subject were easy of 
execution on the canvas. Yet often has it seemed to 
me as if such first outflashing of man's Freewill, to 
lighten, more and more into Day, the Chaotic Night 
that threatened to ingulf him in its hindrances and 
its horrors, were properly the only grandeur there is 
in History. Let some living Angelo or Rosa, with 
seeing eye and understanding heart, picture George 
Fox on that morning, when he spreads-out his cutting- 
board for the last time, and cuts cowhides by un- 
wonted patterns, and stitches them together into one 
continuous all-including Case, the farewell service of 
his awl ! Stitch away, thou noble Fox : every prick 
of that little instrument is pricking into the heart of 
Slavery, and World-worship, and the Mammon-god. 
Thy elbows jerk, as in strong swimmer-strokes, and 
every stroke is bearing thee across the Prison-ditch, 
within which Vanity holds her Workhouse and Rag- 
fair, into lands of true Liberty ; were the work done, 
there is in broad Europe one Free Man, and thou 
art he ! 

" Thus from the lowest depth there is a path to 
the loftiest height ; and for the Poor also a Gospel 
has been published. Surely if, as D'Alembert as- 
serts, my illustrious namesake, Diogenes, was the 
greatest man of Antiquity, only that he wanted 
Decency, then by stronger reason is George Fox the 
greatest of the Moderns, and greater than Diogenes 
himself: for he too stands on the adamantine basis 
of his Manhood, casting aside all props and shores ; 
yet not, in half-savage Pride, undervaluing the Earth ; 



220 SARTOR RESARTUS. book hi. 

valuing it rather, as a place to yield him warmth and 
food, he looks Heavenward from his Earth, and 
dwells in an element of Mercy and Worship, with a 
still Strength, such as the Cynic's Tub did nowise 
witness. Great, truly, was that Tub ; a temple from 
which man's dignity and divinity was scornfully 
preached abroad : but greater is the Leather Hull, 
for the same sermon was preached there, and not in 
Scorn but in Love." 

George Fox's " perennial suit," with all that it held, 
has been worn quite into ashes for nigh two centuries : 
why, in a discussion on the Perfectibility of Society, 
reproduce it now? Not out of blind sectarian parti- 
sanship : Teufelsdrockh himself is no Quaker ; with 
all his pacific tendencies, did not we see him, in that 
scene at the North Cape, with the Archangel Smug- 
gler, exhibit fire-arms? 

For us, aware of his deep Sansculottism, there is 
more meant in this passage than meets the ear. At 
the same time, who can avoid smiling at the earnest- 
ness and Boeotian simplicity (if indeed there be not 
an underhand satire in it), with which that " Inci- 
dent " is here brought forward ; and, in the Professor's 
ambiguous way, as clearly perhaps as he durst in 
Weissnichtwo, recommended to imitation ! Does 
Teufelsdrockh anticipate that, in this age of refine- 
ment, any considerable class of the community, by 
way of testifying against the "Mammon-god," and 
escaping from what he calls "Vanity's Workhouse 
and Ragfair," where doubtless some of them are 
toiled and whipped and hoodwinked sufficiently, — 



chap. ii. CHURCH-CLOTHES. 221 

will sheaths themselves in close-fitting cases of 
Leather? The idea is ridiculous in the extreme. 
Will Majesty lay aside its robes of state, and Beauty 
its frills and train-gowns, for a second-skin of tanned 
hide? By which change Huddersfield and Manches- 
ter, and Coventry and Paisley, and the Fancy-Bazaar, 
were reduced to hungry solitudes ; and only Day and 
Martin could profit. For neither would Teufels- 
drockh's mad daydream, here as we presume covertly 
intended, of levelling Society {levelling it indeed 
with a vengeance, into one huge drowned marsh!), 
and so attaining the political effects of Nudity with- 
out its frigorifie or other consequences, — be thereby 
realized. Would not the rich man purchase a water- 
proof suit of Russia Leather ; and the high-born 
Belle step-forth in red or azure morocco, lined with 
shamoy : the black cowhide being left to the Drudges 
and Gibeonites of the world ; and so all the old 
Distinctions be re-established? 

Or has the Professor his own deeper intention ; 
and laughs in his sleeve at our strictures and glosses, 
which indeed are but a part thereof ? 



CHAPTER II. 

CHURCH-CLOTHES. 

Not less questionable is his Chapter on Church- 
Clothes, which has the farther distinction of being the 
shortest in the Volume. We here translate it entire: 



222 SARTOR RESARTUS. book hi. 

" By Church-Clothes, it need not be premised that 
I mean infinitely more than Cassocks and Surplices ; 
and do not at all mean the mere haberdasher Sunday 
Clothes that men go to Church in. Far from it ! 
Church-Clothes are, in our vocabulary, the Forms, the 
Vestures, under which men have at various periods 
embodied and represented for themselves the Reli- 
gious Principle ; that is to say, invested the Divine 
Idea of the World with a sensible and practically 
active Body, so that it might dwell among them as a 
living and life-giving Word. 

" These are unspeakably the most important of all 
the vestures and garnitures of Human Existence. 
They are first spun and woven, I may say, by that 
wonder of wonders, Society ; for it is still only when 
' two or three are gathered together, 1 that Religion, 
spiritually existent, and indeed indestructible, how- 
ever latent, in each, first outwardly manifests itself 
(as with ' cloven tongues of fire , ), and seeks to be 
embodied in a visible Communion and Church Mili- 
tant. Mystical, more than magical, is that Commun- 
ing of Soul with Soul, both looking heavenward : 
here properly Soul first speaks with Soul ; for only 
in looking heavenward, take it in what sense you 
may, not in looking earthward, does what we can call 
Union, mutual Love, Society, begin to be possible. 
How true is that of Novalis : ' It is certain, my Be- 
lief gains quite infinitely the moment I can convince 
another mind thereof! ' Gaze thou in the face of thy 
Brother, in those eyes where plays the lambent fire 
of Kindness, or in those where rages the lurid con- 
flagration of Anger ; feel how thy own so quiet Soul 



chap. II. CHURCH-CLOTHES. 223 

is straightway involuntarily kindled with the like, 
and ye blaze and reverberate on each other, till it is 
all one limitless confluent flame (of embracing Love, 
or of deadly-grappling Hate) ; and then say what 
miraculous virtue goes out of man into man. But if 
so, through all the thick-plied hulls of our Earthly 
Life ; how much more when it is of the Divine Life 
we speak, and inmost Me is, as it were, brought into 
contact with inmost Me ! 

" Thus was it that I said, the Church-Clothes are 
first spun and woven by Society ; outward Religion 
originates by Society, Society becomes possible by 
Religion. Nay, perhaps, every conceivable Society, 
past and present, may well be figured as properly and 
wholly a Church, in one or other of these three pre- 
dicaments : an audibly preaching and prophesying 
Church, which is the best ; second, a Church that 
struggles to preach and prophesy, but cannot as yet, 
till its Pentecost come ; and third and worst, a 
Church gone dumb with old age, or which only 
mumbles delirium prior to dissolution. Whoso 
fancies that by Church is here meant Chapterhouses 
and Cathedrals, or by preaching and prophesying, 
mere speech and chanting, let him, 1 ' says the oracular 
Professor, "read on, light of heart (getrosten 
Mutkes)." 

" But with regard to your Church proper, and the 
Church-Clothes specially recognized as Church- 
Clothes, I remark, fearlessly enough, that without 
such Vestures and sacred Tissues Society has not 
existed, and will not exist. For if Government is, 
so to speak, the outward Skin of the Body Politic, 



224 SARTOR RESARTUS. book hi. 

holding the whole together and protecting it ; and all 
your Craft-Guilds, and Associations for Industry, of 
hand or of head, are the Fleshly Clothes, the muscu- 
lar and osseous Tissues (lying undei' such Skin), 
whereby Society stands and works ; — then is Reli- 
gion the inmost Pericardial and Nervous Tissue, 
which ministers Life and warm Circulation to the 
whole. Without which Pericardial Tissue the Bones 
and Muscles (of Industry) were inert, or animated 
only by a Galvanic vitality ; the Skin would become 
a shrivelled pelt, or fast-rotting raw-hide ; and Soci- 
ety itself a dead carcass, — deserving to be buried. 
Men were no longer Social, but Gregarious ; which 
latter state also could not continue, but must gradu- 
ally issue in universal selfish discord, hatred, savage 
isolation, and dispersion; — whereby, as we might 
continue to say, the very dust and dead body of 
Society would have evaporated and become abolished. 
Such, and so all-important, all-sustaining, are the 
Church-Clothes to civilized or even to rational men. 

" Meanwhile, in our era of the World, those same 
Church-Clothes have gone sorrowfully out-at-elbows : 
nay, far worse, many of them have become mere 
hollow Shapes, or Masks, under which no living 
Figure or Spirit any longer dwells ; but only spiders 
and unclean beetles, in horrid accumulation, drive 
their trade ; and the mask still glares on you with 
its glass-eyes, in ghastly affectation of Life, — some 
generation-and-half after Religion has quite with- 
drawn from it, and in unnoticed nooks is weaving 
for herself new Vestures, wherewith to reappear, and 
bless us, or our sons or grandsons. Asa Priest, or 



chap. in. SYMBOLS. 225 

Interpreter of the Holy, is the noblest and highest 
of all men, so is a Sham-priest (Schein-priester) the 
falsest and basest ; neither is it doubtful that his 
Canonicals, were they Popes 1 Tiaras, will one day be 
torn from him, to make bandages for the wounds 
of mankind ; or even to burn into tinder, for general 
scientific or culinary purposes. 

" All which, as out of place here, falls to be handled 
in my Second Volume, Ofithe Palingenesia, or New- 
birth of Society ; which volume, as treating practi- 
cally of the Wear, Destruction, and Retexture of 
Spiritual Tissues, or Garments, forms, properly 
speaking, the Transcendental or ultimate Portion of 
this my work on Clothes, and is already in a state of 
forwardness." 

And herewith, no farther exposition, note, or com- 
mentary being added, does Teufelsdrockh, and must 
his Editor now, terminate the singular chapter on 
Church-Clothes ! 



CHAPTER III. 

SYMBOLS. 

Probably it will elucidate the drift of these fore- 
going obscure utterances, if we here insert somewhat 
of our Professor's speculations on Symbols. To state 
his whole doctrine, indeed, were beyond our com- 
pass : nowhere is he more mysterious, impalpable, 
than in this of " Fantasy being the organ of the God- 
like ; " and how " Man thereby, though based, to all 
seeming, on the small Visible, does nevertheless 



226. SARTOR RESARTUS. book in. 

extend down into the infinite deeps of the Invisible, 
of which Invisible, indeed, his Life is properly the 
bodying forth." Let us, omitting these high tran- 
scendental aspects of the matter, study to glean 
(whether from the Paper-bags or the Printed Vol- 
ume) what little seems logical and practical, and 
cunningly arrange it into such degree of coherence 
as it will assume. By way of proem, take the follow- 
ing not injudicious remarks : 

"The benignant efficacies of Concealment,' 1 cries 
our Professor, " who shall speak or sing? Silence 
and Secrecy ! Altars might still be raised to them 
(were this an altar-building time) for universal wor- 
ship. Silence is the element in which great things 
fashion themselves together ; that at length they 
may emerge, full-formed and majestic, into the day- 
light of Life, which they are thenceforth to rule. Not 
William the Silent only, but all the considerable 
men I have known, and the most undiplomatic and 
unstrategic of these, forbore to babble of what they 
were creating and projecting. Nay, in thy own mean 
perplexities, do thou thyself but hold thy tongue for 
one day : on the morrow, how much clearer are thy 
purposes and duties ; what wreck and rubbish have 
those mute workmen within thee swept away, when 
intrusive noises were shut out ! Speech is too often 
not, as the Frenchman defined it, the art of conceal- 
ing Thought; but of quite stifling and suspending 
Thought, so that there is none to conceal. Speech 
too is great, but not the greatest. As the Swiss In- 
scription says : Sprechen ist silbern, Schweigen ist 
golden (Speech is silvern, Silence is golden) ; or as 



CHAP. ill. SYMBOLS. 227 

I might rather express it : Speech is of Time, Silence 
is of Eternity. 

" Bees will not work except in darkness ; Thought 
will not work except in Silence : neither will Virtue 
work except in Secrecy. Let not thy left hand know 
what thy right hand doeth ! Neither shalt thou prate 
even to thy own heart of ' those secrets known to 
all.' Is not Shame (Schani) the soil of all Virtue, 
of all good manners and good morals? Like other 
plants, Virtue will not grow unless its root be hidden, 
buried from the eye of the sun. Let the sun shine 
on it, nay do but look at it privily thyself, the root 
withers, and no flower will glad thee. O my Friends, 
when we view the fair clustering flowers that over- 
wreathe, for example, the Marriage-bower, and encir- 
cle man's life with the fragrance and hues of Heaven, 
what hand will not smite the foul plunderer that 
grubs them up by the roots, and with grinning, 
grunting satisfaction, shows us the dung they flourish 
in ! Men speak much of the Printing-Press with its 
Newspapers : du Hinunell what are these to Clothes 
and the Tailor's Goose?' 1 

" Of kin to the so incalculable influences of Con- 
cealment, and connected with still greater things, is 
the wondrous agency of Syjnbols. In a Symbol there 
is concealment and yet revelation : here therefore, by 
Silence and by Speech acting together, comes a 
double significance. And if both the Speech be 
itself high, and the Silence fit and noble, how expres- 
sive will their union be ! Thus in many a painted 
Device, or simple Seal-emblem, the commonest 
Truth stands out to us proclaimed with quite new 
emphasis. 



228 SARTOR RESARTUS. book in. 

" For it is here that Fantasy with her mystic won- 
derland plays into the small prose domain of Sense, 
and becomes incorporated therewith. In the Symbol 
proper, what we can call a Symbol, there is ever, 
more or less distinctly and directly, some embodi- 
ment and revelation of the Infinite ; the Infinite is 
made to blend itself with the Finite, to stand visible, 
and as it were, attainable there. By Symbols, accord- 
ingly, is man guided and commanded, made happy, 
made wretched. He everywhere finds himself encom- 
passed with Symbols, recognized as such or not 
recognized : the Universe is but one vast Symbol of 
God ; nay if thou wilt have it, what is man himself 
but a Symbol of God ; is not all that he does sym- 
bolical ; a revelation to Sense of the mystic god- 
given force that is in him ; a ' Gospel of Freedom, 1 
which he, the ' Messias of Nature, 1 preaches, as he 
can, by act and word ? Not a Hut he builds but is 
the visible embodiment of a Thought ; but bears 
visible record of invisible things; but is, in the 
transcendental sense, symbolical as well as real. 11 

"Man," says the Professor elsewhere, in quite 
antipodal contrast with these high-soaring delinea- 
tions, which we have here cut-short on the verge of 
the inane, " Man is by birth somewhat of an owl. 
Perhaps, too, of all the owleries that ever possessed 
him, the most owlish, if we consider it, is that of 
your actually existing Motive-Millwrights. Fantastic 
tricks enough man has played, in his time ; has 
fancied himself to be most things, down even to an 
animated heap of Glass : but to fancy himself a dead 
Iron-Balance for weighing Pains and Pleasures on, 



chap. in. SYMBOLS. 229 

was reserved for this his latter era. There stands he, 
his Universe one huge Manger, filled with hay and 
thistles to be weighed against each other ; and looks 
long-eared enough. Alas, poor devil ! spectres are 
appointed to haunt him : one age he is hagridden, 
bewitched ; the next, priestridden, befooled ; in all 
ages, bedevilled. And now the Genius of Mechan- 
ism smothers him worse than any Nightmare did ; 
till the Soul is nigh choked out of him, and only a 
kind of Digestive, Mechanic life remains. In Earth 
and in Heaven he can see nothing but Mechanism ; 
has fear for nothing else, hope in nothing else : the 
world would indeed grind him to pieces ; but cannot 
he fathom the Doctrine of Motives, and cunningly 
compute these, and mechanize them to grind the 
other way ? 

"Were he not, as has been said, purblinded by 
enchantment, you had but to bid him open his eyes 
and look. In which country, in which time, was it 
hitherto that man's history, or the history of any 
man, went-on by calculated or calculable ' Motives'? 
What make ye of your Christianities, and Chivalries, 
and Reformations, and Marseilles Hymns, and Reigns 
of Terror? Nay, has not perhaps the Motive-grinder 
himself been in Love f Did he never stand so much 
as a contested Election? Leave him to Time, and 
the medicating virtue of Nature." 

" Yes, Friends," elsewhere observes the Professor, 
"not our Logical, Mensurative faculty, but our 
Imaginative one is King over us ; I might say, 
Priest and Prophet to lead us heavenward ; or Magi- 
cian and Wizard to lead us hell ward. Nay, even 



230 SARTOR RESARTUS. book hi. 

for the basest Sensualist, what is Sense but the im- 
plement of Fantasy ; the vessel it drinks out of? 
Ever in the dullest existence there is a sheen either 
of Inspiration or of Madness (thou partly hast it in 
thy choice, which of the two), that gleams-in from 
the circumambient Eternity, and colors with its 
own hues our little islet of Time. The Undertand- 
ing is indeed thy window, too clear thou canst not 
make it ; but Fantasy is thy eye, with its color- 
giving retina, healthy or diseased. Have not I my- 
self known five-hundred living soldiers sabred into 
crows'-meat for a piece of glazed cotton, which 
they called their Flag ; which, had you sold it at 
at any market-cross, would not have brought above 
three groschen? Did not the whole Hungarian 
Nation rise, like some tumultuous moon-stirred 
Atlantic, when Kaiser Joseph pocketed their Iron 
Crown ; an implement, as was sagaciously observed, 
in size and commercial value little differing from a 
horse-shoe? It is in and through Sy?nbols that man, 
consciously or unconsciously, lives, works, and has 
his being : those ages, moreover, are accounted the 
noblest which can the best recognize symbolical 
worth, and prize it the highest. For is not a Symbol 
ever, to him who has eyes for it, some dimmer or 
clearer revelation of the Godlike? 

"Of Symbols, however, I remark farther, that 
they have both an extrinsic and intrinsic value ; 
oftenest the former only. What, for instance, was 
in that clouted Shoe, which the Peasants bore aloft 
with them as ensign in their Bauernkrieg (Peas- 
ants 1 War) ? Or in the Wallet-and-staff round which 



chap. in. SYMBOLS. 231 

the Netherland Gueux, glorying in that nickname 
of Beggars, heroically rallied and prevailed, though 
against King Philip himself? Intrinsic significance 
- these had none : only extrinsic ; as the accidental 
Standards of multitudes more or less sacredly unit- 
ing together ; in which union itself, as above noted, 
there is ever something mystical and borrowing of 
the Godlike. Under a like category, too, stand, or 
stood, the stupidest heraldic Coats-of-arms ; military 
Banners everywhere ; and generally all national or 
other sectarian Costumes and Customs : they have 
no intrinsic, necessary divineness, or even worth ; 
but have acquired an extrinsic one. Nevertheless 
through all these there glimmers something of a 
Divine Idea ; as through military Banners them- 
selves, the Divine Idea of Duty, of heroic Daring ; 
in some instances of Freedom, of Right. Nay the 
highest ensign that men ever met and embraced 
under, the Cross itself, had no meaning save an 
accidental extrinsic one. 

"Another matter it is, however, when your Sym- 
bol has intrinsic meaning, and is of itself fit that 
men should unite round it. Let but the Godlike 
manifest itself to Sense ; let but Eternity look, more 
or less visibly, through the Time-Figure (ZeitbilcT) ! 
Then is it fit that men unite there ; and worship 
together before such Symbol ; and so from day to 
day, and from age to age, superadd to it new divine- 
ness. 

" Of this latter sort are all true Works of Art: in 
them (if thou know a Work of Art from a Daub of 
Artifice) wilt thou discern Eternity looking through 



232 SARTOR RESARTUS. book in. 

Time ; the Godlike rendered visible. Here too may 
an extrinsic value gradually superadd itself: thus 
certain Iliads, and the like, have, in three-thou- 
sand years, attained quite new significance. But 
nobler than all in this kind are the Lives of heroic 
god-inspired Men ; for what other Work of Art is so 
divine? In Death too, in the Death of the Just, as 
the last perfection of a Work of Art, may we not 
discern symbolic meaning? In that divinely trans- 
figured Sleep, as of Victory, resting over the beloved 
face which now knows thee no more, read (if thou 
canst for tears) the confluence of Time with Eternity, 
and some gleam of the latter peering through. 

" Highest of all Symbols are those wherein the 
Artist or Poet has risen into Prophet, and all men 
can recognize a present God, and worship the same : 
I mean religious Symbols. Various enough have 
been such religious Symbols, what we call Religions ; 
as men stood in this stage of culture or the other, 
and could worse or better body-forth the Godlike : 
some Symbols with a transient intrinsic worth ; 
many with only an extrinsic. If thou ask to what 
height man has carried it in this manner, look on 
our divinest Symbol : on Jesus of Nazareth, and his 
Life, and his Biography, and what followed there- 
from. Higher has the human Thought not yet 
reached : this is Christianity and Christendom ; a 
Symbol of quite perennial, infinite character ; whose 
significance will ever demand to be anew inquired 
into, and anew made manifest. 

* l But, on the whole, as Time adds much to the 
sacredness of Symbols, so likewise in his progress he 



chap. in. SYMBOLS. 233 

at length defaces, or even desecrates them ; and 
Symbols, like all terrestrial Garments, wax old. 
Homers Epos, has not ceased to be true ; yet it is no 
longer our Epos, but shines in the distance, if clearer 
and clearer, yet also smaller and smaller, like a reced- 
ing Star. It needs a scientific telescope, it needs to 
be reinterpreted and artificially brought near us, 
before we can so much as know that it was a Sun. 
So likewise a day comes when the Runic Thor, with 
his Eddas, must withdraw into dimness ; and many 
an African Mumbo-Jumbo and Indian Pawaw be 
utterly abolished. For all things, even Celestial 
Luminaries, much more atmospheric meteors, have 
their rise, their culmination, their decline." 

" Small is this which thou tellest me, that the 
Royal Sceptre is but a piece of gilt-wood ; that the 
Pyx has become a most foolish box, and truly, as 
Ancient Pistol thought, ' of little price.' A right 
Conjurer might I name thee, couldst thou conjure 
back into these wooden tools the divine virtue they 
once held.'" 

"Of this thing, however, be certain: wouldst 
thou plant for Eternity, then plant into the deep in- 
finite faculties of man, his Fantasy and Heart; 
wouldst thou plant for Year and Day, then plant 
into his shallow superficial faculties, his Self-love and 
Arithmetical Understanding, what will grow there. 
A Hierarch, therefore, and Pontiff of the World will 
we call him, the Poet and inspired Maker ; who, 
Prometheus-like, can shape new Symbols, and bring 
new Fire from Heaven to fix it there. Such too 
will not always be wanting ; neither perhaps now 



234 SARTOR RESARTUS. book hi. 

■are. Meanwhile, as the average of matters goes, we 
account him Legislator and wise who can so much 
as tell when a Symbol has grown old, and gently 
remove it. 

" When, as the last English Coronation 1 was pre- 
paring," concludes this wonderful Professor, " I read 
in their Newspapers that the ' Champion of Eng- 
land,' he who has to offer battle to the Universe for 
his new King, had brought it so far that he could 
now ' mount his horse with little assistance, ' I said 
to myself: Here also we have a Symbol well-nigh 
superannuated. Alas, move whithersoever you may, 
are not the tatters and rags of superannuated worn- 
out Symbols (in this Ragfair of a World) dropping 
off everywhere, to hoodwink, to halter,' to tether 
you ; nay, if you shake them not aside, threatening 
to accumulate, and perhaps produce suffocation?" 



CHAPTER IV. 

HELOTAGE. 

At this point we determine on adverting shortly, 
or rather reverting, to a certain Tract of Hofrath 
Heuschrecke's, entitled Institute for the Repression 
of Populatio7i ; which lies, dishonorably enough 
(with torn leaves, and a perceptible smell of aloetic 
drugs), stuffed into the Bag Pisces. Not indeed for 
the sake of the Tract itself, which we admire little ; 
but of the marginal Notes, evidently in Teufels- 

1 That of George IV. — Ed. 



chap. iv. HELOTAGE. 235 

drdckh's hand, which rather copiously fringe it. A 
few of these may be in their right place here. 

Into the Hofrath's Institute, with its extraordinary 
schemes, and machinery of Corresponding Boards 
and the like, we shall not so much as glance. 
Enough for us to understand that Heuschrecke is a 
disciple of Malthus ; and so zealous for the doctrine, 
that his zeal almost literally eats him up. A deadly 
fear of Population possesses the Hofrath ; something 
like a fixed-idea ; undoubtedly akin to the more 
diluted forms of Madness. Nowhere, in that quarter 
of his intellectual world, is there light; nothing but a 
grim shadow of Hunger ; open mouths opening wider 
and wider ; a world to terminate by the frightfullest 
consummation : by its too dense inhabitants, fam- 
ished into delirium, universally eating one another. 
To make air for himself in which strangulation, chok- 
ing enough to a benevolent heart, the Hofrath founds, 
or proposes to found, this Institute of his, as the best 
he can do. It is only with our Professor's comments 
thereon that we concern ourselves. 

First, then, remark that Teufelsdrdckh, as a specu- 
lative Radical, has his own notions about human 
dignity ; that the Zahdarm palaces and courtesies 
have not made him forgetful of the Futteral cottages. 
On the blank cover of Heuschrecke's Tract we find 
the following indistinctly engrossed : 

" Two men I honor, and no third. First, the toil- 
worn Craftsman that with earth-made Implement 
laboriously conquers the Earth, and makes her 
man's. Venerable to me is the hard Hand ; crooked, 
coarse ; wherein notwithstanding lies a cunning vir- 



236 SARTOR RESARTUS. book hi. 

tue, indefeasibly royal, as of the Sceptre of this 
Planet. Venerable too is the rugged face, all weather- 
tanned, besoiled, with its rude intelligence ; for it is 
the face of a Man living manlike. O, but the more 
venerable for thy rudeness, and even because we 
must pity as well as love thee ! Hardly-entreated 
Brother ! For us was thy back so bent, for us were 
thy straight limbs and fingers so deformed : thou 
wert our Conscript, on whom the lot fell, and fight- 
ing our battles wert so marred. For in thee too lay 
a god-created Form, but it was not to be unfolded ; 
incrusted must it stand with the thick adhesions and 
defacements of Labor : and thy body, like thy soul, 
was not to know freedom. Yet toil on, toil on: thou 
art in thy duty, be out of it who may ; thou toilest 
for the altogether indispensable, for daily bread. 

" A second man I honor, and still more highly: 
Him who is seen toiling for the spiritually indispens- 
able ; not daily bread, but the bread of Life. Is not 
he too in his duty ; endeavoring towards inward 
Harmony ; revealing this, by act or by word, through 
all his outward endeavors, be they high or low? 
Highest of all, when his outward and his inward 
endeavor are one : when we can name him Artist ; 
not earthly Craftsman only, but inspired Thinker, 
who with heaven-made Implement conquers Heaven 
for us ! If the poor and humble toil that we have 
Food, must not the high and glorious toil for him in 
return, that he have Light, have Guidance, Freedom, 
Immortality? — These two, in all their degrees, I 
honor: all else is chaff and dust, which let the wind 
blow whither it listeth. 



chap. iv. HELOTAGE. 237 

" Unspeakably touching is it, however, when I find 
both dignities united ; and he that must toil out- 
wardly for the lowest of man's wants, is also toiling 
inwardly for the highest. Sublimer in this world 
know I nothing than a Peasant Saint, could such 
now anywhere be met with. Such a one will take 
thee back to Nazareth itself; thou wilt see the splen- 
dor of Heaven spring forth from the humblest depths 
of Earth, like a light shining in great darkness." 

And again: " It is not because of his toils that I 
lament for the poor : we must all toil, or steal (how- 
soever we name our stealing) , which is worse ; no 
faithful workman finds his task a pastime. The poor 
is hungry and athirst ; b,ut for him also there is food 
and drink : he is heavy-laden and weary ; but for 
him also the Heavens send Sleep, and of the deep- 
est ; in his smoky cribs, a clear dewy heaven of Rest 
envelops him, and fitful glitterings of cloud-skirted 
Dreams. But what I do mourn over is, that the 
lamp of his soul should go out ; that no ray of 
heavenly, or even of earthly knowledge, should visit 
him ; but only, in the haggard darkness, like two 
spectres, Fear and Indignation bear him company. 
Alas, while the Body stands so broad and brawny, 
must the Soul lie blinded, dwarfed, stupefied, almost 
annihilated ! Alas, was this too a Breath of God ; 
bestowed in Heaven, but .on earth never to be un- 
folded ! — That there should one Man die ignorant 
who had capacity /or Knowledge, this I call a 
tragedy, were it to happen more than twenty times 
in the minute, as by some computations it does. 
The miserable fraction of Science which our united 



238 SARTOR RESARTUS. book hi. 

Mankind, in a wide Universe of Nescience, has ac- 
quired, why is not this, with all diligence, imparted 
to all?" 

Quite in an opposite strain is the following : " The 
old Spartans had a wiser method ; and went out and 
hunted-down their Helots, and speared and spitted 
them, when they grew too numerous. With our 
improved fashions of hunting, Herr Hofrath, now 
after the invention of fire-arms, and standing-armies, 
how much easier were such a hunt ! Perhaps in the 
most thickly-peopled country, some three days annu- 
ally might suffice to shoot all the able-bodied Paupers 
that had accumulated within the year. Let Govern- 
ments think of this. The expense were trifling: nay 
the very carcasses would pay it. Have them salted 
and barrelled ; could not you victual therewith, if 
not Army and Navy, yet richly such infirm Paupers, 
in workhouses and elsewhere, as enlightened Char- 
ity, dreading no evil of them, might see good to keep 
alive ? " 

"And yet, 11 writes he farther on, "there must be 
something wrong. A full-formed Horse will, in any 
market, bring from twenty to as high as two-hundred 
Friedrichs d'or : such is his worth to the world. A 
full-formed Man is not only worth nothing to the 
world, but the world could afford him a round sum 
would he simply engage to go and hang himself. 
Nevertheless, which of the two was the more cun- 
ningly-devised article, even as an Engine? Good 
Heavens ! A white European Man, standing on his 
two Legs, with his two five-fingered Hands at his 
shackle-bones, and miraculous Head on his shoulders, 



chap. v. THE PHCENIX. 239 

is worth, I should say, from fifty to a hundred 
Horses ! " 

''True, thou Gold-Hofrath," cries the Professor 
elsewhere: "too crowded indeed! Meanwhile, what 
portion of this inconsiderable terraqueous Globe 
have ye actually tilled and delved, till it will grow 
no more? How thick stands your Population in the 
Pampas and Savannas of America ; round ancient 
Carthage, and in the interior of Africa ; on both 
slopes of the Altaic chain, in the central Platform of 
Asia ; in Spain, Greece, Turkey, Crim Tartary, the 
Curragh of Kildare? One man, in one year, as I 
have understood it, if you lend him Earth, will feed 
himself and nine others. Alas, where now are the 
Hengsts and Alarics of our still-glowing, still-expand- 
ing Europe ; who, when their home is grown too 
narrow, will enlist, and, like Fire-pillars, guide on- 
wards those superfluous masses of indomitable living 
Valor ; equipped, not now with the battle-axe and 
war-chariot, but with the steam-engine and plough- 
share ? Where are they ? — Preserving their Game ! " 



CHAPTER V. 

THE PHCENIX. 

Putting which four singular Chapters together, 
»nd alongside of them numerous hints, and even 
direct utterances, scattered over these Writings of 
his, we come upon the startling yet not quite un- 
looked-for conclusion, that Teufelsdrockh is one of 



2 4-0 SARTOR RESARTUS. book hi. 

those who consider Society, properly so called, to be 
as good as extinct ; and that only the gregarious feel- 
ings, and old inherited habitudes, at this juncture, 
hold us from Dispersion, and universal national, 
civil, domestic and personal war ! He says expressly : 
" For the last three centuries, above all for the last 
three quarters of a century, that same Pericardial 
Nervous Tissue (as we named it) of Religion, where 
lies the Life-essence of Society, has been smote-at 
and perforated, needfully and needlessly ; till now it 
is quite rent into shreds ; and Society, long pining, 
diabetic, consumptive, can be regarded as defunct ; 
for those spasmodic, galvanic sprawlings are not life ; 
neither indeed will they endure, galvanize as you 
may, beyond two days." 

"Call ye that a Society," cries he again, "where 
there is no longer any Social Idea extant ; not so 
much as the Idea of a common Home, but only of 
a common over-crowded Lodging-house? Where 
each, isolated, regardless of his neighbor, turned 
against his neighbor, clutches what he can get, and 
cries ' Mine ! ' and calls it Peace, because, in the 
cut-purse and cut-throat Scramble, no steel knives, 
but only a far cunninger sort, can be employed? 
Where Friendship, Communion, has become an in- 
credible tradition ; and your holiest Sacramental 
Supper is a smoking Tavern Dinner, with Cook for 
Evangelist? Where your Priest has no tongue but 
for plate-licking : and your high Guides and Govern- 
ors cannot guide ; but on all hands hear it passion- 
ately proclaimed : Laissez /aire ; Leave us alone of 
your guidance, such light is darker than darkness ; 
eat you your wages, and sleep ! 



chap. v. THE PHCENIX. 241 

"Thus, too," continues he, "does an observant 
eye discern everywhere that saddest spectacle : The 
Poor perishing, like neglected, foundered Draught- 
Cattle, of Hunger and Overwork; the Rich, still 
more wretchedly, of Idleness, Satiety, and Over- 
growth. The Highest in rank, at length, without 
honor from the Lowest ; scarcely, with a little mouth- 
honor, as from tavern-waiters who expect to put it 
in the bill. Once-sacred Symbols fluttering as empty 
Pageants, whereof men grudge even the expense ; a 
World becoming dismantled : in one word, the 
Church fallen speechless, from obesity and apoplexy ; 
the State shrunken into a Police-Office, straitened 
to get its pay ! " 

We might ask, are there many "observant eyes," 
belonging to practical men in England or elsewhere, 
which have descried these phenomena ; or is it only 
from the mystic elevation of a German Wahngasse 
that such wonders are visible? Teufelsdrockh con- 
tends that the aspect of a " deceased or expiring 
Society " fronts us everywhere, so that whoso runs 
may read. "What, for example," says he, "is the 
universally-arrogated Virtue, almost the sole remain- 
ing Catholic Virtue, of these days? For some half 
century, it has been the thing you name ' Indepen- 
dence. 1 Suspicion of ' Servility,' of reverence for 
Superiors, the very dogleech is anxious to disavow. 
Fools ! Were your Superiors worthy to govern, and 
you worthy to obey, reverence for them were even 
your only possible freedom. Independence, in all 
kinds, is rebellion ; if unjust rebellion, why parade 
it, and everywhere prescribe it?" 



242 SARTOR RESARTUS. book hi. 

But what then? Are we returning, as Rousseau 
prayed, to the state of Nature? " The Soul Politic 
having departed," says Teufelsdrockh, "what can 
follow but that the Body Politic be decently interred, 
to avoid putrescence? Liberals, Economists, Utili- 
tarians enough I see marching with its bier, and 
chanting loud paeans, towards the funeral-pile, where, 
amid wailings from some, and saturnalian revelries 
from the most, the venerable Corpse is to be burnt. 
Or, in plain words, that these men, Liberals, Utili- 
tarians, or whatsoever they are called, will ultimately 
carry their point, and dissever and destroy most 
existing Institutions of Society, seems a thing which 
has some time ago ceased to be doubtful. 

" Do we not see a little subdivision of the grand 
Utilitarian Armament come to light even in insulated 
England? A living nucleus, that will attract and 
grow, does at length appear there also ; and under 
curious phasis ; properly as the inconsiderable fag- 
end, and so far in the rear of the others as to fancy 
itself the van. Our European Mechanizers are a sect 
of boundless diffusion, activity, and co-operative 
spirit : has not Utilitarianism flourished in high 
places of Thought, here among ourselves, and in 
every European country, at some time or other, 
within the last fifty years? If now in all countries, 
except perhaps England, it has ceased to flourish, or 
indeed to exist, among Thinkers, and sunk to Jour- 
nalists and the popular mass, — who sees not that, as 
hereby it no longer preaches, so the reason is, it now 
needs no Preaching, but is in full universal Action, 
the doctrine everywhere known, and enthusiastically 



chap. v. THE PHCENIX. 243 

laid to heart? The fit pabulum, in these times, for a 
certain rugged workshop intellect and heart, nowise 
without their corresponding workshop strength and 
ferocity, it requires but to be stated in such scenes to 
make proselytes enough. — Admirably calculated for 
destroying, only not for rebuilding ! It spreads like 
a sort of Dog-madness ; till the whole World-kennel 
will be rabid : then woe to the Huntsmen, with or 
without their whips ! They should have given the 
quadrupeds water, " adds he ; " the water, namely, of 
Knowledge and of Life, while it was yet time." 

Thus, if Professor Teufelsdrockh can be relied on, 
we are at this hour in a most critical condition ; 
beleaguered by that boundless " Armament of Mech- 
anizers" and Unbelievers, threatening to strip us 
bare! "The World, 1 ' says he, "as it needs must, 
is under a process of devastation and waste, which, 
whether by silent assiduous corrosion, or open 
quicker combustion, as the case chances, will effect- 
ually enough annihilate the past Forms of Society ; 
replace them with what it may. For the present, it 
is contemplated that when man's whole Spiritual 
Interests are once divested, these innumerable stript- 
off Garments shall mostly be burnt ; but the sounder 
Rags among them be quilted together into one huge 
Irish watch-coat for the defence of the Body only ! " 
— This, we think, is but Job's-news to the humane 
reader. 

" Nevertheless," cries Teufelsdrockh, " who can 
hinder it ; who is there that can clutch into the 
wheelspokes of Destiny, and say to the Spirit of the 
Time : Turn back, I command thee ? — Wiser were it 



244 SARTOR RESARTUS. book hi. 

that we yielded to the Inevitable and Inexorable, and 
accounted even this the best." 

Nay, might not an attentive Editor, drawing his 
own inferences from what stands written, conjecture 
that Teufelsdrockh individually had yielded to this 
same " Inevitable and Inexorable 11 heartily enough ; 
and now sat waiting the issue, with his natural diabol- 
ico-angelical Indifference, if not even Placidity? Did 
we not hear him complain that the World was a " huge 
Ragfair," and the " rags and tatters of old Symbols " 
were raining-down everywhere, like to drift him in, 
and suffocate him? What with those " unhunted 
Helots " of his ; and the uneven sic vos non vobis 
pressure and hard-crashing collision he is pleased to 
discern in existing things ; what with the so hateful 
" empty Masks," full of beetles and spiders, yet 
glaring out on him, from their glass eyes, " with a 
ghastly affectation of life," — we feel entitled to con- 
clude him even willing that much should be thrown 
to the Devil, so it were but done gently ! Safe him- 
self in that " Pinnacle of Weissnichtwo," he would 
consent, with a tragic solemnity, that the monster 
Utilitaria, held back, indeed, and moderated by 
nose-rings, halters, foot-shackles, and every conceiv- 
able modification of rope, should go forth to do her 
work ; — to tread down old ruinous Palaces and Tem- 
ples with her broad hoof, till the whole were trodden 
down, that new and better might be built ! Remark- 
able in this point of view are the following sentences. 

" Society," says he, "is not dead: that Carcass, 
which you call dead Society, is but her mortal coil 
which she has shuffled-off, to assume a nobler ,• she 



chap. v. THE PHCENIX. 245 

herself, through perpetual metamorphoses, in fairer 
and fairer development, has to live till Time also 
merge in Eternity. Wheresoever two or three Liv- 
ing Men are gathered together, there is Society ; or 
there it will be, with its cunning mechanisms and 
stupendous structures, overspreading this little Globe, 
and reaching upwards to Heaven and downwards to 
Gehenna: for always, under one or the other figure, 
it has two authentic Revelations, of a God and of a 
Devil; the Pulpit, namely, and the Gallows.'" 

Indeed, we already heard him speak of " Religion, 
in unnoticed nooks, weaving for herself new Vest- 
ures ; " — Teufelsdrockh himself being one of the 
loom-treadles ? Elsewhere he quotes without censure 
that strange aphorism of Saint-Simon's, concerning 
which and whom so much were to be said: " Vdge 
d^or, qii'une aveugle tradition a place jusquHci dans 
le passe, est devant nous ; The golden age, which a 
blind tradition has hitherto placed in the Past, is 
Before us. 11 — But listen again : 

" When the Phoenix is fanning her funeral pyre, 
will there not be sparks flying ! Alas, some millions 
of men, and among them such as a Napoleon, have 
already been licked into that high-eddying Flame, 
and like moths consumed there. Still also have we 
to fear that incautious beards will get singed. 

" For the rest, in what year of grace such Phoenix- 
cremation will be completed, you need not ask. The 
law of Perseverance is among the deepest in man : by 
nature he hates change ; seldom will he quit his old 
house till it has actually fallen about his ears. Thus 
have I seen Solemnities linger as Ceremonies, sacred 



246 SARTOR RESARTUS. book hi. 

Symbols as idle Pageants, to the extent of three-hun- 
dred years and more after all life and sacredness had 
evaporated out of them. And then, finally, what 
time the Phoenix Death-Birth itself will require, 
depends on unseen contingencies. — Meanwhile, 
would Destiny offer Mankind, that after, say two 
centuries of convulsion and conflagration, more or 
less vivid, the fire-creation should be accomplished, 
and we to find ourselves again in a Living Society, 
and no longer fighting but working, — were it not 
perhaps prudent in Mankind to strike the bargain ? " 
Thus is Teufelsdrockh content that old sick Society 
should be deliberately burnt (alas, with quite other 
fuel than spice-wood) ; in the faith that she is a 
Phoenix ; and that a new heavenborn young one will 
rise out of her ashes ! We ourselves, restricted to 
the duty of Indicator, shall forbear commentary. 
Meanwhile, will not the judicious reader shake his 
head, and reproachfully, yet more in sorrow than in 
anger, say or think : From a Doctor utriusque Juris, 
titular Professor in a University, and man to whom 
hitherto, for his services, Society, bad as she is, has 
given not only food and raiment (of a kind), but 
books, tobacco and gukguk, we expected more grati- 
tude to his benefactress ; and less of a blind trust in 
the future, which resembles that rather of a philo- 
sophical Fatalist and Enthusiast, than of a solid 
householder paying scot-and-lot in a Christian 
country. 



chap. vi. OLD CLOTHES. 247 

CHAPTER VI. 

OLD CLOTHES. 

As mentioned above, Teufelsdrockh, though a 
sansculottist, is in practice probably the politest man 
extant : his whole heart and life are penetrated and in- 
formed with the spirit of politeness ; a noble natural 
Courtesy shines through him, beautifying his vagaries ; 
like sun-light, making a rosy-fingered, rainbow-dyed 
Aurora out of mere aqueous clouds ; nay, brightening 
London-smoke itself into gold vapor, as from the 
crucible of an alchemist. Hear in what earnest 
though fantastic wise he expresses himself on this 
head : 

" Shall Courtesy be done only to the rich, and 
only by the rich? In Good-breeding, which differs, 
if at all, from High-breeding, only as it gracefully 
remembers the rights of others, rather than grace- 
fully insists on its own rights, I discern no special 
connection with wealth or birth : but rather that it 
lies in human nature itself, and is due from all men 
towards all men. Of a truth, were your Schoolmaster 
at his post, and worth anything when there, this, with 
so much else, would be reformed. Nay, each man 
were then also his neighbor's schoolmaster ; till at 
length a rude-visaged, unmannered Peasant could no 
more be met with, than a Peasant unacquainted with 
botanical Physiology, or who felt not that the clod he 
broke was created in Heaven. 

" For whether thou bear a sceptre or a sledge-ham- 
mer, art not thou alive ; is not this thy brother 



248 SARTOR RESARTUS. book in. 

alive? 'There is but one temple in the world,' 
says Novalis, ' and that temple is the Body of Man. 
Nothing is holier than this high Form. Bending be- 
fore men is a reverence done to this Revelation in the 
Flesh. We touch Heaven, when we lay our hands 
on a human Body.'' 

" On which ground, I would fain carry it farther 
than most do ; and whereas the English Johnson 
only bowed to every Clergyman, or man with a shovel- 
hat, I would bow to every Man with any sort of hat, or 
with no hat whatever. Is not he a Temple, then ; 
the visible Manifestation and Impersonation of the 
Divinity? And yet, alas, such indiscriminate bowing 
serves not. For there is a Devil dwells in man, as 
well as a Divinity ; and too often the bow is but 
pocketed by the former. It would go to the pocket 
of Vanity (which is your clearest phasis of the Devil, 
in these times) ; therefore must we withold it. 

" The gladder am I, on the other hand, to do rever- 
ence to those Shells and outer Husks of the Body, 
wherein no devilish passion any longer lodges, but 
only the pure emblem and effigies of Man : I mean, 
to Empty, or even to Cast Clothes. Nay, is it not to 
Clothes that most men do reverence : to the fine 
frogged broadcloth, nowise to the ' straddling animal 
with bandy legs ' which it holds, and makes a Digni- 
tary of? Who ever saw any Lord my-lorded in 
tattered blanket fastened with wooden skewer? 
Nevertheless, I say, there is in such worship a shade 
of hypocrisy, a practical deception : for how often 
does the Body appropriate what was meant for the 
Cloth only ! Whoso would avoid falsehood, which 



chap. vi. OLD CLOTHES. 249 

is the essence of all Sin, will perhaps see good to take 
a different course. That reverence which cannot act 
without obstruction and perversion when the Clothes 
are full, may have free course when they are empty. 
Even as, for Hindoo Worshippers, the Pagoda is not 
less sacred than the God ; so do I too worship the 
hollow cloth Garment with equal fervor, as when it 
contained the Man : nay, with more, for I now fear 
no deception, of myself or of others. 

"Did not King Toomtabard, or, in other words, 
John Baliol, reign long over Scotland ; the man John 
Baliol being quite gone, and only the ' Toom 
Tabard 1 (Empty Gown) remaining? What still 
dignity dwells in a suit of Cast Clothes ! How 
meekly it bears its honors ! No haughty looks, no 
scornful gesture : silent and serene, it fronts the 
world ; neither demanding worship, nor afraid to miss 
it. The Hat still carries the physiognomy of its 
Head : but the vanity and the stupidity, and goose- 
speech which was the sign of these two, are gone. 
The Coat-arm is stretched out, but not to strike ; the 
Breeches, in modest simplicity, depend at ease, and 
now at last have a graceful flow ; the Waistcoat hides 
no evil passion, no riotous desire ; hunger or thirst now 
dwells not in it. Thus all is purged- from the gross- 
ness of sense, from the carking cares and foul vices 
of the World ; and rides there, on its Clothes-Horse ; 
as, on a Pegasus, might some skyey Messenger, or 
purified Apparition, visiting our low Earth. 

" Often, while I sojourned in that monstrous tuber- 
osity. of Civilized Life, the Capital of England ; and 
meditated, and questioned Destiny, under that ink- 



250 SARTOR RESARTUS. book iit. 

sea of vapor, black, thick, and multifarious as 
Spartan broth ; and was one lone soul amid those 
grinding millions ; — often have I turned into their 
Old-Clothes Market to worship. With awe-struck 
heart I walk through that Monmouth Street, with its 
empty Suits, as through a Sanhedrim of stainless 
Ghosts. Silent are they, but expressive in their 
silence : the past witnesses and instruments of Woe 
and Joy, of Passions, Virtues, Crimes, and all the 
fathomless tumult of Good and Evil in ' the Prison 
men call Life. 1 Friends ! trust not the heart of that 
man for whom Old Clothes are not venerable. Watch, 
too, with reverence, that bearded Jewish High-priest, 
who with hoarse voice, like some Angel of Doom, 
summons them from the four winds ! On his head, 
like the Pope, he has three Hats, — a real triple tiara ; 
on either hand are the similitude of wings, whereon 
the summoned Garments come to alight ; and ever, 
as he slowly cleaves the air, sounds forth his deep 
fateful note, as if through a trumpet he were pro- 
claiming: 'Ghosts of Life, come to Judgment! 1 
Reck not, ye fluttering Ghosts : he will purify you in 
his Purgatory, with fire and with water ; and, one day, 
new-created ye shall reappear. O, let him in whom 
the flame of Devotion is ready to go out, who has 
never worshipped, and knows not what to worship, 
pace and repace, with austerest thought, the pave- 
ment of Monmouth Street, and say whether his heart 
and his eyes still continue dry. If Field Lane, with 
its long fluttering rows of yellow handkerchiefs, be a 
Dionysius 1 Ear, where, in stifled jarring hubbub, we 
hear the Indictment which Poverty and Vice bring 



chap. vi. OLD CLOTHES. 251 

against lazy Wealth, that it has left them there cast- 
out and trodden under foot of Want, Darkness and 
the Devil, — then is Monmouth Street a Mirza's 
Hill, where, in motley vision, the whole Pageant of 
Existence passes awfully before us ; with its wail and 
jubilee, mad loves and mad hatreds, church-bells and 
gallows-ropes, farce-tragedy, beast-godhood, — the 
Bedlam of Creation ! " 

To most men, as it does to ourselves, all this will 
seem overcharged. We too have walked through 
Monmouth Street; but with little feeling of "Devo- 
tion : " probably in part because the contemplative 
process is so fatally broken in upon by the brood of 
money-changers who nestle in that Church, and 
importune the worshipper with merely secular 
proposals. Whereas Teufelsdrockh might be in 
that happy middle state, which leaves to the Clothes- 
broker no hope either of sale or of purchase, and so 
be allowed to linger there without molestation. — 
Something we would have given to see the little phil- 
osophical figure, with its steeple-hat and loose flowing 
skirts, and eyes in a fine frenzy, " pacing and repacing 
in austerest thought " that foolish Street ; which to 
him was a true Delphic avenue, and supernatural 
Whispering-gallery, where the "Ghosts of Life" 
rounded strange secrets in his ear. O thou phil- 
osophic Teufelsdrockh, that listenest while others 
only gabble, and with thy quick tympanum hearest 
the grass grow ! 

At the same time, is it not strange that, in Paper- 
bag Documents destined for an English work, there 



252 SARTOR RESARTUS. book hi. 

exists nothing like an authentic diary of this his 
sojourn in London ; and of his Meditations among 
the Clothes-shops only the obscurest emblematic 
shadows? Neither, in conversation (for, indeed, he 
was not a man to pester you with his Travels) , have 
we heard him more than allude to the subject. 

For the rest, however, it cannot be uninteresting 
that we here find how early the significance of 
Clothes had dawned on the now so distinguished 
Clothes-Professor. Might we but fancy it to have 
been even in Monmouth Street, at the bottom of our 
own English " ink-sea,"'' that this remarkable Volume 
first took being, and shot forth its salient point in 
his soul, — as in Chaos did the Egg of Eros, one 
day to be hatched into a Universe ! 



CHAPTER VII. 

ORGANIC FILAMENTS. 

For us, who happen to live while the World- 
Phcenix is burning herself, and burning so slowly 
that, as Teufelsdrockh calculates, it were a hand- 
some bargain would she engage to have done 
"within two centuries,' 1 there seems to lie but an 
ashy prospect. Not altogether so, however, does the 
Professor figure it. " In the living subject," says he, 
" change is wont to be gradual : thus, while the serpent 
sheds its old skin, the new is already formed beneath. 
Little knowest thou of the . burning of a World- 
Phcenix, who fanciest that she must first burn-out, 



chap. vii. ORGANIC FILAMENTS. 253 

and lie as a dead cinereous heap ; and therefrom the 
young one start-up by miracle, and fly heavenward. 
Far otherwise ! In that Fire-whirlwind, Creation and 
Destruction proceed together ; ever as the ashes of 
the Old are blown about, do organic filaments of the 
New mysteriously spin themselves : and amid the 
rushing and the waving of the Whirlwind-element 
come tones of a melodious Deathsong, which end 
not but in tones of a more melodious Birthsong. 
Nay, look into the Fire-whirlwind with thy own 
eyes, and thou wilt see." Let us actually look, then : 
to poor individuals, who cannot expect to live two 
centuries, those same organic filaments, mysteriously 
spinning themselves, will be the best part of the 
spactacle. First, therefore, this of Mankind in 
general : 

"In vain thou deniest it,*" says the Professor; 
" thou art my Brother. Thy very Hatred, thy very 
Envy, those foolish Lies thou tellest of me in thy 
splenetic humor : what is all this but an inverted 
Sympathy? Were I a Steam-engine, wouldst thou 
take the trouble to tell lies of me ? Not thou ! I 
should grind all unheeded, whether badly or well. 

" Wondrous truly are the bonds that unite us one 
and all ; whether by the soft binding of Love, or the 
iron chaining of Necessity, as we like to choose it. 
More than once have I said to myself, of some per- 
haps whimsically strutting Figure, such as provokes 
whimsical thoughts : ' Wert thou, my little Brother- 
kin, suddenly covered-up within the largest imagin- 
able Glass-bell, — what a thing it were, not for thyself 
only, but for the world ! Post Letters, more or fewer, 



254 SARTOR RESARTUS. book in. 

from all the four winds, impinge against thy Glass 
walls, but have to drop unread : neither from within 
comes there question or response into any Postbag ; 
thy Thoughts fall into no friendly ear or heart, thy 
Manufacture into no purchasing hand : thou art no 
longer a circulating venous-arterial Heart, that, tak- 
ing and giving, circulatest through all Space and all 
Time : there has a Hole fallen-out in the immeasur- 
able, universal World-tissue, which must be darned- 
up again ! ' 

" Such venous-arterial circulation, of Letters, verbal 
Messages, paper and other Packages, going out from 
him and coming in, are a blood-circulation, visible 
to the eye : but the finer nervous circulation, by 
which all things, the minutest that he does, minutely 
influence all men, and the very look of his face blesses 
or curses whomso it lights on, and so generates ever 
new blessing or new cursing : all this you cannot 
see, but only imagine. I say, there is not a red 
Indian, hunting by Lake Winnipic, can quarrel with 
his squaw, but the whole world must smart for it : 
will not the price of beaver rise? It is a mathemat- 
ical fact that the casting of this pebble from my hand 
alters the centre of gravity of the Universe. 

" If now an existing generation of men stand so 
woven together, not less indissolubly does generation 
with generation. Hast thou ever meditated on that 
word, Tradition : how we inherit not Life only, but 
all the garniture and form of Life ; and work, and 
speak, and even think and feel, as our Fathers, and 
primeval grandfathers, from the beginning, have given 
it us? — Who printed thee, for example, this unpre- 



CHAP. vii. ORGANIC FILAMENTS. 255 

tending Volume on the Philosophy of Clothes ? Not 
the Herren Stillschweigen and Company ; but Cad- 
mus of Thebes, Faust of Mentz, and innumerable 
others whom thou knowest not. Had there been no 
Moesogothic Ulfila, there had been no English Shak- 
speare, or a different one. Simpleton ! it was Tubal- 
cain that made thy very Tailor's needle, and sewed 
that court-suit of thine. 

" Yes, truly, if Nature is one, and a living indivisible 
whole, much more is Mankind, the Image that reflects 
and creates Nature, without which Nature were not. 
As palpable life-streams in that wondrous Individual 
Mankind, among so many life-streams that are not 
palpable, flow on those main-currents of what we call 
Opinion ; as preserved in Institutions, Polities, 
Churches, above all in Books. Beautiful it is to 
understand and know that a Thought did never yet 
die ; that as thou, the originator thereof, hast gath- 
ered it and created it from the whole Past, so thou 
wilt transmit it to the whole Future. It is thus that 
the heroic heart, the seeing eye of the first times, 
still feels and sees in us of the latest ; that the Wise 
Man stands ever encompassed, and spiritually em- 
braced, by a cloud of witnesses and brothers ; and 
there is a living, literal Communion of Saints, wide 
as the World itself, and as the History of the World. 

Noteworthy also, and serviceable for the progress 
of this same Individual, wilt thou find his subdivis- 
ion into Generations. Generations are as the Days 
of toilsome Mankind : Death and Birth are the vesper 
and the matin bells, that summon Mankind to sleep, 
and to rise refreshed for new advancement. What 



256 SARTOR RESARTUS. book in. 

the Father has made, the Son can make and enjoy ; 
but has also work of his own appointed him. Thus 
all things wax, and roll onwards ; Arts, Establish- 
ments, Opinions, nothing is completed, but ever 
completing. Newton has learned to see what Kepler 
saw ; but there is also a fresh heaven-derived force in 
Newton ; he must mount to still higher points of 
vision. So too the Hebrew Lawgiver is, in due 
time, followed by an Apostle of the Gentiles. In 
the business of Destruction, as this also is from time 
to time a necessary work, thou findest a like sequence 
and perseverance : for Luther it was as yet hot 
enough to stand by that burning of the Pope's Bull ; 
Voltaire could not warm himself at the glimmering 
ashes, but required quite other fuel. Thus likewise, 
I note, the English Whig has, in the second gener- 
ation, become an English Radical ; who, in the third 
again, it is to be hoped, will become an English Re- 
builder. Find Mankind where thou wilt, thou find- 
est it in living movement, in progress faster or 
slower : the Phoenix soars aloft, hovers with out- 
stretched wings, filling Earth with her music ; or, 
as now, she sinks, and with spheral swan-song 
immolates herself in flame, that she may soar the 
higher and sing the clearer. 11 

Let the friends of social order, in such a disastrous 
period, lay this to heart, and derive from it any little 
comfort they can. We subjoin another passage, 
concerning Titles : 

" Remark, not without surprise, 11 says Teufels- 
'drockh, " how all high Titles of Honor come hith- 
erto from Fighting. Your Herzog (Duke, Dux) is 



chap. vii. ORGANIC FILAMENTS. 257 

Leader of Armies ; your Earl {J art) is Strong Man ; 
your Marshal cavalry Horse-shoer. A Millennium, 
or reign of Peace and Wisdom, having from of old 
been prophesied, and becoming now daily more 
and more indubitable, may it not be apprehended 
that such Fighting-titles will cease to be palatable, 
and new and higher need to be devised? 

" The only Title wherein I, with confidence, trace 
eternity, is that of King. Konig (King) , anciently 
Konning, means Ken-ning (Cunning) , or which is 
the same thing, Can-ning. Ever must the Sovereign 
of Man-kind be fitly entitled King." 

"Well, also," says he elsewhere, "was it written 
by Theologians : a King rules by divine right. He 
carries in him an authority from God, or man will 
never give it him. Can I choose my own King? I 
can choose my own King Popinjay, and play what 
farce or tragedy I may with him : but he who is to 
be my Ruler, whose will is to be higher than my will, 
was chosen for me in Heaven. Neither except in 
such Obedience to the Heaven-chosen is Freedom 
so much as conceivable." 

The Editor will here admit that, among all the 
wondrous provinces of Teufelsdrockh's spiritual 
world, there is none he walks in with such astonish- 
ment, hesitation, and even pain, as in the Political. 
How, with our English love of Ministry and Opposi- 
tion, and that generous conflict of Parties, mind 
warming itself against mind in their mutual wrestle 
for the Public Good, by which wrestle, indeed, is 
our invaluable Constitution kept warm and alive ,* 



258 SARTOR RESARTUS. book hi. 

how shall we domesticate ourselves in this spectral 
Necropolis, or rather City both of the Dead and of 
the Unborn, where the Present seems little other 
than an inconsiderable Film dividing the Past and 
the Future? In those dim longdrawn expanses, all 
is so immeasurable ; much so disastrous, ghastly ; your 
very radiances and straggling light-beams have a 
supernatural character. And then with such an in- 
difference, such a prophetic peacefulness (accounting 
the inevitably coming as already here, to him all one 
whether it be distant by centuries or only by days) , 
does he sit; — and live, you would say, rather in 
any other age than in his own ! It is our painful 
duty to announce, or repeat, that, looking into this 
man, we discern a deep, silent, slow-burning, inextin- 
guishable Radicalism, such as fills us with shudder- 
ing admiration. 

Thus, for example, he appears to make little even 
of the Elective Franchise ; at least so we interpret 
the following: "Satisfy yourselves," he says, "by 
universal, indubitable experiment, even as ye are 
now doing or will do, whether Freedom, heaven- 
born and leading heavenward, and so vitally essential 
for us all, cannot peradventure be mechanically 
hatched and brought to light in that same Ballot-Box 
of yours ; or at worst, in some other discoverable or 
devisable Box, Edifice, or Steam-mechanism. It 
were a mighty convenience ; and beyond all feats of 
manufacture witnessed hitherto." Is Teufelsdrockh 
acquainted with . the British Constitution, even 
slightly? — He says, under another figure: "But 
after all, were the problem, as indeed it now every- 



chap. vii. ORGANIC FILAMENTS. 259 

where is, To rebuild your old House from the top 
downwards (since you must live in it the while), 
what better, what other, than the Representative 
Machine will serve your turn? Meanwhile, however, 
mock me not with the name of Free, ' when you 
have but knit-up my chains into ornamental fes- 
toons.' " — Or what will any member of the Peace 
Society make of such an assertion as this: "The 
lower people everywhere desire War. Not so un- 
wisely ; there is then a demand for lower people — 
to be shot ! " 

Gladly, therefore, do we emerge from those soul- 
confusing labyrinths of speculative Radicalism, into 
somewhat clearer regions. Here, looking round, as 
was our hest, for " organic filaments," we ask, may 
not this, touching " Hero-worship," be of the number? 
It seems of a cheerful character ; yet so quaint, so 
mystical, one knows not what, or how little, may lie 
under it. Our readers shall look with their own 
eyes : 

" True is it that, in these days, man can do almost 
all things, only not obey. True likewise that whoso 
cannot obey cannot be free, still less bear rule ; he 
that is the inferior of nothing, can be the superior of 
nothing, the equal of nothing. Nevertheless, believe 
not that man has lost his faculty of Reverence ; that 
if it slumber in him, it has gone dead. Painful for 
man is that same rebellious Independence, when it 
has become inevitable ; only in loving companion- 
ship with his fellows does he feel safe ; only in rever- 
ently bowing down before the Higher does he feel 
himself exalted. 



260 SARTOR RESARTUS. book hi. 

" Or what if the character of our so troublous Era 
lay even in this : that man had forever cast away 
Fear, which is the lower ; but not yet risen into per- 
ennial Reverence, which is the higher and highest? 

"Meanwhile, observe with joy, so cunningly has 
Nature ordered it, that whatsoever man ought to 
obey, he cannot but obey. Before no faintest revela- 
tion of the Godlike did he ever stand irreverent ; 
least of all, when the Godlike showed itself revealed 
in his fellow-man. Thus is there a true religious 
Loyalty forever rooted in his heart; nay, in all ages, 
even in ours, it manifests itself as a more or less 
orthodox Hero-worship. In which fact, that Hero- 
worship exists, has existed, and will forever exist, 
universally among Mankind, mayest thou discern the 
corner-stone of living-rock, whereon all Polities for 
the remotest time may stand secure." 

Do our readers discern any such corner-stone, or 
even so much as what Teufelsdrockh is looking at? 
He exclaims, " Or hast thou forgotten Paris and 
Voltaire? How the aged, withered man, though but 
a Sceptic, Mocker, and millinery Court-poet, yet be- 
cause even he seemed the Wisest, Best, could drag 
mankind at his chariot-wheels, so that princes coveted 
a smile from him, and the loveliest of France would 
have laid their hair beneath his feet ! All Paris was 
one vast Temple of Hero-worship ; though their Di- 
vinity, moreover, was of feature too apish. 

" But if such things," continues he," were done in 
the dry tree, what will be done in the green ? If, in the 
most parched season of Man's History, in the most 
parched spot of Europe, when Parisian life was at 



chap. vit. ORGANIC FILAMENTS. 261 

best but a scientific Hortus Siccus, bedizened with 
some Italian Gumflowers, such virtue could come 
out of it ; what is to be looked for when Life again 
waves leafy and bloomy, and your Hero-Divinity shall 
have nothing apelike, but be wholly human? Know 
that there is in man a quite indestructible Reverence 
for whatsoever holds of Heaven, or even plausibly 
counterfeits such holding. Show the dullest clod- 
pole, show the haughtiest featherhead, that a soul 
higher than himself is actually here ; were his knees 
stiffened into brass, he must down and worship." 

Organic filaments, of a more authentic sort, mys- 
teriously spinning themselves, some will perhaps dis- 
cover in the following passage : 

"There is no Church, sayest thou? The voice of 
Prophecy has gone dumb ? This is even what I dis- 
pute : but in any case, hast thou not still Preaching 
enough ? A Preaching Friar settles himself in every 
village ; and builds a pulpit, which he calls News- 
paper. Therefrom he preaches what most moment- 
ous doctrine is in him, for man's salvation ; and dost 
not thou listen, and believe? Look well, thou seest 
everywhere a new Clergy of the Mendicant Orders, 
some bare-footed, some almost bare-backed, fashion 
itself into shape, and teach and preach, zealously 
enough, for copper alms and the love of God. These 
break in pieces the ancient idols ; and, though them- 
selves too often reprobate, as idol-breakers are wont 
to be, mark out the sites of new Churches, where 
the true God-ordained, that are to follow, may find 
audience, and minister. Said I not, Before the old 
skin was shed, the new had formed itself beneath it?" 



262 SARTOR RESARTUS. book hi. 

Perhaps also in the following ; wherewith we now 
hasten to knit-up this ravelled sleeve : 

" But there is no Religion? 1 ' reiterates the Profes- 
sor. "Fool! I tell thee, there is. Hast thou well 
considered all that lies in this immeasurable froth- 
ocean we name Literature? Fragments of a gen- 
uine Ch.\irc\\-Ho7niletic lie scattered there, which 
Time will assort : nay, fractions even of a Liturgy 
could I point out. And knowest thou no Prophet, even 
in the vesture, environment, and dialect of this age? 
None to whom the Godlike had revealed itself, 
through all meanest and highest forms of the Com- 
mon ; and by him been again prophetically revealed : 
in whose inspired melody, even in these rag-gather- 
ing and rag-burning days, Man's Life again begins, 
were it but afar off, to be divine? Knowest thou 
nonesuch? I know him, and name him — Goethe. 

"But thou as yet standest in no Temple; joinest 
in no Psalm-worship ; feelest well that, where there 
is no ministering Priest, the people perish? Be of 
comfort ! Thou art not alone, if thou have Faith. 
Spake we not of a Communion of Saints, unseen, yet 
not unreal, accompanying and brother-like embra- 
cing thee, so thou be worthy? Their heroic Suffer- 
ings rise up melodiously together to Heaven, out of 
all lands, and out of all times, as a sacred Miserere ; 
their heroic Actions also, as a boundless everlasting 
Psalm of Triumph. Neither say that thou hast now 
no Symbol of the Godlike. Is not God's Universe a 
Symbol of the Godlike ; is not Immensity a Temple ; 
is not Man's History, and Men's History, a perpetual 
Evangel ? Listen, and for organ-music thou wilt ever, 
as of old, hear the Morning Stars sing together." 



chap. viii. NATURAL SUPERNATURALISM. 263 
CHAPTER VIII. 

NATURAL SUPERNATURALISM. 

It is in his stupendous Section, headed Natural 
Super -naturalism, that the Professor first becomes a 
Seer ; and, after long effort, such as we have wit- 
nessed, finally subdues under his feet this refractory 
Clothes-Philosophy, and takes victorious possession 
thereof. Phantasms enough he has had to struggle 
with ; " Cloth-webs and Cob-webs," of Imperial Man- 
tles, Superannuated Symbols, and what not : yet still 
did he courageously pierce through. Nay, worst of 
all, two quite mysterious, world-embracing Phantasms, 
Time and Space, have ever hovered round him, 
perplexing and bewildering : but with these also he 
now resolutely grapples, these also he victoriously 
rends asunder. In a word, he has looked fixedly on 
Existence, till, one after the other, its earthly hulls 
and garnitures have all melted away ; and now, to 
his rapt vision, the interior celestial Holy of Holies 
lies disclosed. 

Here, therefore, properly it is that the Philosophy of 
Clothes attains to Transcendentalism ; this last leap, 
can we but clear it, takes us safe into the promised 
land, where Palingenesia, in all senses, may be con- 
sidered as beginning. "Courage, then!" may our 
Diogenes exclaim, with better right than Diogenes the 
First once did. This stupendous Section we, after long 
painful meditation, have found not to be unintelligible ; 
but, on the contrary, to grow clear, nay radiant, and 
all-illuminating. Let the reader, turning on it what 



264 SARTOR RESARTUS. book hi. 

utmost force of speculative intellect is in him, do his 
part ; as we, by judicious selection and adjustment, 
shall study to do ours : 

" Deep has been, and is, the significance of Mira- 
cles," thus quietly begins the Professor; " far deeper 
perhaps than we imagine. Meanwhile, the question 
of questions were : What specially is a Miracle ? To 
that Dutch King of Siam, an icicle had been a mir- 
acle ; whoso had carried with him an air-pump, and 
vial of vitriolic ether, might have worked a miracle. 
To my Horse, again, who unhappily is still more un- 
scientific, do not I work a miracle, and magical 
* Often sesame!" 1 every time I please to pay two- 
pence, and open for him an impassable Schlagbaum, or 
shut Turnpike? 

" ' But is not a real Miracle simply a violation of 
the Laws of Nature? 1 ask several. Whom I answer 
by this new question : What are the Laws of Nature ? 
To me perhaps the rising of one from the dead were 
no violation of these Laws, but a confirmation ; were 
some far deeper Law, now first penetrated into, and 
by Spiritual Force, even as the rest have all been, 
brought to bear on us with its Material Force. 

" Here too may some inquire, not without aston- 
ishment : On what ground shall one, that can make 
Iron swim, come and declare that therefore he can 
teach Religion? To us, truly, of the Nineteenth 
Century, such declaration were inept enough ; which 
nevertheless to our fathers, of the First Century, was 
full of meaning. 

" ' But is it not the deepest Law of Nature that she 
be constant? 1 cries an illuminated class: ' Is not the 



chap. viii. NATURAL SUPERNATURALISM. 265 

Machine of the Universe fixed to move by unalterable 
rules?' Probable enough, good friends: nay I, too, 
must believe that the God, whom ancient inspired 
men assert to be ' without variableness or shadow of 
turning,' does indeed never change ; that Nature, 
that the Universe, which no one whom it so pleases 
can be prevented from calling a Machine, does move 
by the most unalterable rules. And now of you, too, 
I make the old inquiry : What those same unalterable 
rules, forming the complete Statute-Book of Nature, 
may possibly be ? 

" They stand written in our Works of Science, say 
you ; in the accumulated records of Man's Experi- 
ence? — Was Man with his Experience present at the 
Creation, then, to see how it all went on? Have any 
deepest scientific individuals yet dived down to the 
foundations of the Universe, and gauged everything 
there ? Did the Maker take them into His counsel ; 
that they read His groundplan of the incomprehen- 
sible All ; and can say, This stands marked therein, 
and no more than this? Alas, not in anywise! 
These scientific individuals have been nowhere but 
where we also are ; have seen some handbreadths 
deeper than we see into the Deep that is infinite, 
without bottom as without shore. 

" Laplace's Book on the Stars, wherein he exhibits 
that certain Planets, with their Satellites, gyrate 
round our worthy Sun, at a rate and in a course, 
which, by greatest good fortune, he and the like of 
him have succeeded in detecting, — is to me as 
precious as to another. But is this what thou namest 
4 Mechanism of the Heavens,' and ' System of the 



266 SARTOR RESARTUS. book hi. 

World ; ' this, wherein Sirius and the Pleiades, and 
all Herschel's Fifteen-thousand Suns per minute, 
being left out, some paltry handful of Moons, and 
inert Balls, had been — looked at, nicknamed, and 
marked in the Zodiacal Way-bill ; so that we can now 
prate of their Whereabout ; their How, their Why, 
their What, being hid from us, as in the signless 
Inane? 

' ' System of Nature ! To the wisest man, wide as 
is his vision, Nature remains of quite infinite depth, 
of quite infinite expansion ; and all Experience thereof 
limits itself to some few computed centuries and 
measured square-miles. The course of Nature's 
phases, on this our little fraction of a Planet, is par- 
tially known to us : but who knows what deeper 
courses these depend on ; what infinitely larger Cycle 
(of causes) our little Epicycle revolves on? To the 
Minnow every cranny and pebble, and quality and 
accident, of its little native Creek may have become 
familiar : but does the Minnow understand the Ocean 
Tides and periodic Currents, the Trade-winds, and 
Monsoons, and Moon's Eclipses ; by all which the 
condition of its little Creek is regulated, and may, 
from time to time (////miraculously enough) , be quite 
overset and reversed ? Such a minnow is Man ; his 
Creek this Planet Earth ; his Ocean the immeasur- 
able All ; his Monsoons and periodic Currents the 
mysterious Course of Providence through ^Eons of 
vEons. 

" We speak of the Volume of Nature : and truly a 
Volume it is, — whose Author and Writer is God. 
To read it ! Dost thou, does man, so much as well 



chap. viii. NATURAL SUPERNATURALISM. 267 

know the Alphabet thereof ? With its Words, Sen- 
tences, and grand descriptive Pages, poetical and 
philosophical, spread out through Solar Systems, 
and Thousands of Years, we shall not try thee. It 
is a Volume written in celestial hieroglyphs, in the 
true Sacred-writing ; of which even Prophets are 
happy that they can read here a line and there a line. 
As for your Institutes, and Academies of Science, they 
strive bravely ; and, from amid the thick-crowded, 
inextricably intertwisted hieroglyphic writing, pick 
out, by dextrous combination, some Letters in the 
vulgar Character, and therefrom put together this 
and the other economic Recipe, of high avail in Prac- 
tice. That Nature is more than some boundless 
Volume of such Recipes, or huge, well-nigh inex- 
haustible Domestic-Cookery Book, of which the 
whole secret will in this manner one day evolve itself, 
the fewest dream. 

"Custom," continues the Professor, "doth make 
dotards of us all. Consider well, thou wilt find that 
Custom is the greatest of Weavers ; and weaves air- 
raiment for all the Spirits of the Universe ; whereby, 
indeed, these dwell with us visibly, as ministering 
servants, in our houses and workshops ; but their 
spiritual nature becomes, to the most, forever hidden. 
Philosophy complains that Custom has hoodwinked 
us, from the first ; that we do everything by Custom, 
even Believe by it; that our very Axioms, let us 
boast of Free-thinking as we may, are oftenest simply 
such Beliefs as we have never heard questioned. 
Nay, what is Philosophy throughout but a continual 



268 SARTOR RESARTUS. book hi. 

battle against Custom ; an ever-renewed effort to 
transcend the sphere of blind Custom, and so become 
Transcendental ? 

"Innumerable are the illusions and legerdemain- 
tricks of Custom : but of all these, perhaps the clever- 
est is her knack of persuading us that the Miraculous, 
by simple repetition, ceases to be Miraculous. True, 
it is by this means we live ; for man must work as 
well as wonder : and herein is Custom so far a kind 
nurse, guiding him to his true benefit. But she is a 
fond, foolish nurse, or rather we are false, foolish 
nurslings, when, in our resting and reflecting hours, 
we prolong the same deception. Am I to view the 
Stupendous with stupid indifference, because I have 
seen it twice, or two-hundred, or two-million times? 
There is no reason in Nature or in Art why I should : 
unless, indeed, I am a mere Work-Machine, for whom 
the divine gift of Thought were no other than the 
terrestrial gift of Steam is to the Steam-engine ; a 
power whereby cotton might be spun, and money and 
money's worth realized. 

" Notable enough too, here as elsewhere, wilt thou 
find the potency of Names ; which indeed are but one 
kind of such custom-woven, wonder-hiding Garments. 
Witchcraft, and all manner of Spectre-work, and 
Demonology, we have now named Madness, and 
Diseases of the Nerves. Seldom reflecting that still 
the new question comes upon us : What is Madness, 
what are Nerves? Ever, as before, does Madness 
remain a mysterious-terrific, altogether infernal boil- 
ing-up of the Nether Chaotic Deep, through this fair- 
painted Vision of Creation, which swims thereon, 



chap. viii. NATURAL SUPERNATURALISM. 269 

which we name the Real. Was Luther's Picture of 
the Devil less a Reality, whether it were formed 
within the bodily eye, or without it? In every the 
wisest Soul lies a whole world of internal Madness, 
an authentic Demon-Empire ; out of which, indeed, 
his world of Wisdom has been creatively built to- 
gether, and now rests there, as on its dark founda- 
tions does a habitable flowery Earth-rind. 

"But deepest of all illusory Appearances, for hid- 
ing Wonder, as for many other ends, are your two 
grand fundamental world-enveloping Appearances, 
Space and Time. These, as spun and woven for us 
from before Birth itself, to clothe our celestial Me for 
dwelling here, and yet to blind it, — lie all-embracing, 
as the universal canvas, or warp and woof, whereby 
all minor Illusions, in this Phantasm Existence, weave 
and paint themselves. In vain, while here on Earth, 
shall you endeavor to strip them off; you can, at best, 
but rend them asunder for moments, and look through. 

"Fortunatus had a wishing Hat, which when he 
put on, and wished himself Anywhere, behold he was 
There. By this means had Fortunatus triumphed 
over Space, he had annihilated Space ; for him there 
was no Where, but all was Here. Were a Hatter to 
establish himself, in the Wahngasse of Weissnichtwo, 
and make felts of this sort for all mankind, what a 
world we should have of it ! Still stranger, should, 
on the opposite side of the street, another Hatter 
establish himself; and, as his fellow-craftsman made 
Space-annihilating Hats, make Time-annihilating! 
Of both would I purchase, were it with my last gros- 



270 SARTOR RESARTUS. book hi. 

chen ; but chiefly of this latter. To clap-on your 
felt, and, simply by wishing that you were Anywhere, 
straightway to be There I Next to clap-on your other 
felt, and, simply by wishing that you were Any when, 
straightway to be Then! This were indeed the 
grander : shooting at will from the Fire-Creation of 
the World to its Fire-Consummation ; here histori- 
cally present in the First Century, conversing face to 
face with Paul and Seneca ; there prophetically in the 
Thirty-first, conversing also face to face with other 
Pauls and Senecas, who as yet stand hidden in the 
depth of that late Time ! 

"Or thinkest thou it were impossible, unimagin- 
able? Is the Past annihilated, then, or only past ; is 
the Future nonextant, or only future? Those mystic 
faculties of thine, Memory and Hope, already answer : 
already through those mystic avenues, thou the Earth- 
blinded summonest both Past and Future, and com- 
munest with them, though as yet darkly, and with 
mute beckonings. The curtains of Yesterday drop 
down, the curtains of To-morrow roll up ; but Yester- 
day and To-morrow both are. Pierce through the 
Time-element, glance into the Eternal. Believe what 
thou findest written in the sanctuaries of Man's Soul, 
even as all Thinkers, in all ages, have devoutly read 
it there : that Time and Space are not God, but crea- 
tions of God ; that with God as it is a universal Here, 
so is it an everlasting Now. 

"And seest thou therein any glimpse of Immor- 
tality? — O Heaven! Is the white Tomb of our 
Loved One, who died from our arms, and had to be 
left behind us there, which rises in the distance, like 



chap. vni. NATURAL SUPERNATURALISM. 271 

a pale, mournfully receding Milestone, to tell how 
many toilsome uncheered miles we have journeyed on 
alone, — but a pale spectral Illusion! Is the lost 
Friend still mysteriously Here, even as we are Here 
mysteriously, with God! — Know of a truth that only 
the Time-shadows have perished, or are perishable ; 
that the real Being of whatever was, and whatever is, 
and whatever will be, is even now and forever. This, 
should it unhappily seem new, thou mayest ponder at 
thy leisure ; for the next twenty years, or the next 
twenty centuries : believe it thou must ; understand it 
thou canst not. 

"That the Thought-forms, Space and Time, 
wherein, once for all, we are sent into this Earth to 
live, should condition and determine our whole Prac- 
tical reasonings, conceptions, and imagings or im- 
aginings, seems altogether fit, just, and unavoidable. 
But that they should, furthermore, usurp such sway 
over pure spiritual Meditation, and blind us to the 
wonder everywhere lying close on us, seems nowise 
so. Admit Space and Time to their due rank as 
Forms of Thought ; nay, even, if thou wilt, to their 
quite undue rank of Realities : and consider, then, 
with thyself how their thin disguises hide from us the 
brightest God-effulgences ! Thus, were it not mirac- 
ulous, could I stretch forth my hand and clutch the 
Sun? Yet thou seest me daily stretch forth my hand 
and therewith clutch many a thing, and swing it hither 
and thither. Art thou a grown baby, then, to fancy that 
the Miracle lies in miles of distance, or in pounds 
avoirdupois of weight ; and not to see that the true 
inexplicable God-revealing Miracle lies in this, that I 



272 SARTOR RESARTUS. book hi. 

can stretch forth my hand at all ; that I have free 
Force to clutch aught therewith? Innumerable other 
of this sort are the deceptions, and wonder-hiding 
stupefactions, which Space practises on us. 

" Still worse is it with regard to Time. Your 
grand anti -magician, and universal wonder-hider, is 
this same lying Time. Had we but the Time-annihi- 
lating Hat, to put on for once only, we should see 
ourselves in a World of Miracles, wherein all fabled 
or authentic Thaumaturgy, and feats of Magic, were 
outdone. But unhappily we have not such a Hat; 
and man, poor fool that he is, can seldom and scan- 
tily help himself without one. 

"Were it not wonderful, for instance, had Or- 
pheus, or Amphion, built the walls of Thebes by the 
mere sound of his Lyre? Yet tell me, Who built 
these walls of Weissnichtwo ; summoning out all the 
sandstone rocks, to dance along from the Steinbruch 
(now a huge Troglodyte Chasm, with frightful green- 
mantled pools) ; and shape themselves into Doric 
and Ionic pillars, squared ashlar houses and noble 
streets? Was it not the still higher Orpheus, or 
Orpheuses, who, in past centuries, by the divine 
Music of Wisdom, succeeded in civilizing Man? Our 
highest Orpheus walked in Judea, eighteen-hundred 
years ago : his sphere-melody, flowing in wild native 
tones, took captive the ravished souls of men ; and, 
being of a truth sphere-melody, still flows and sounds, 
though now with thousandfold accompaniments, and 
rich symphonies, through all our hearts ; and modu- 
lates, and divinely leads them. Is that a wonder, 
which happens in two hours ; and does it cease to be 



chap. vin. NATURAL SUPERNATURALISM. 273 

wonderful if happening in two million? Not only 
was Thebes built by the music of an Orpheus ; but 
without the music of some inspired Orpheus was no 
city ever built, no work that man glories in ever 
done. 

" Sweep away the Illusion of Time ; glance, if thou 
have eyes, from the near moving-cause to its far-dis- 
tant Mover : The stroke that came transmitted 
through a whole galaxy of elastic balls, was it less a 
stroke than if the last ball only had been struck, and 
sent flying? O, could I (with the Time-annihilating 
Hat) transport thee direct from the Beginnings to the 
Endings, how were thy eyesight unsealed, and thy 
heart set flaming in the Light-sea of celestial wonder ! 
Then sawest thou that this fair Universe, were it in 
the meanest province thereof, is in very deed the star- 
domed City of God ; that through every star, through 
every grass-blade, and most through every Living 
Soul, the glory of a present God still beams. But 
Nature, which is the Time-vesture of God, and reveals 
Him to the wise, hides Him from the foolish. 

"Again, could anything be more miraculous than 
an actual authentic Ghost? The English Johnson 
longed, all his life, to see one ; but could not, though 
he went to Cock Lane, and thence to the church- 
vaults, and tapped on coffins. Foolish Doctor! Did 
he never, with the mind's eye as well as with the 
body's, look round him into that full tide of human 
Life he so loved ; did he never so much as look into 
Himself? The good Doctor was a Ghost, as actual 
and authentic as heart could wish ; well-nigh a mil- 
lion of Ghosts were travelling the streets by his side. 



274 SARTOR RESARTUS. book hi. 

Once more I say, sweep away the illusion of Time ; 
compress the threescore years into three minutes : 
what else was he, what else are we ? Are we not Spirits, 
that are shaped into a body, into an Appearance : 
and that fade away again into air and Invisibility? 
This is no metaphor, it is a simple scientific fact : 
we start out of Nothingness, take figure, and are 
Apparitions ; round us, as round the veriest spectre, 
is Eternity ; and to Eternity minutes are as years 
and aeons. Come there not tones of Love and Faith, 
as from celestial harp-strings, like the Song of beati- 
fied Souls? And again, do not we squeak and jibber 
(in our discordant, screech-owlish debatings and re- 
criminatings) ; and glide bodeful, and feeble, and fear- 
ful ; or uproar ( polterri) , and revel in our mad 
Dance of the Dead, — till the scent of the morning 
air summons us to our still Home ; and dreamy 
Night, becomes awake and Day? Where now is 
Alexander of Macedon : does the steel Host, that 
yelled in fierce battle-shouts at Issus and Arbela, 
remain behind him ; or have they all vanished utterly, 
even as perturbed Goblins must? Napoleon too, and 
his Moscow Retreats and Austerlitz Campaigns? 
Was it all other than the veriest Spectre-hunt ; which 
has now, with its howling tumult that made Night 
hideous, flitted away? — Ghosts! There are nigh a 
thousand-million walking the Earth openly at noon- 
tide ; some half-hundred have vanished from it, some 
half-hundred have arisen in it, ere thy watch ticks 
once. 

" O Heaven, it is mysterious, it is awful to consider 
that we only carry each a future Ghost within him ; 



chap. vin. NATURAL SUPERNATURALISM. 275 

but are, in very deed, Ghosts ! These Limbs, 
whence had we them ; this stormy Force ; this life- 
blood with its burning Passion? They are dust and 
shadow ; a Shadow-system gathered round our Me ; 
wherein, through some moments or years, the Divine 
Essence is to be revealed in the Flesh. That warrior 
on his strong war-horse, fire flashes through his eyes ; 
force dwells in his arm and heart : but warrior and 
war-horse are a vision ; a revealed Force, nothing 
more. Stately they tread the Earth, as if it were a 
firm substance : fool ! the Earth is but a film ; it 
cracks in twain, and warrior and war-horse sink be- 
yond plummet's sounding. Plummet's ? Fantasy her- 
self will not follow them. A little while ago, they 
were not ; a little while, and they are not, their very 
ashes are not. 

" So has it been from the beginning, so will it be to 
the end. Generation after generation takes to itself the 
Form of a Body ; and forth-issuing from Cimmerian 
Night, on Heaven's mission appears. What Force 
and Fire is in each he expends : one grinding in the 
mill of Industry ; one hunter-like climbing the giddy 
Alpine heights of Science ; one madly dashed in 
pieces on the rocks of Strife, in war with his fellow : 
— and then the Heaven-sent is recalled; his earthly 
Vesture falls away, and soon even to Sense becomes 
a vanished Shadow. Thus, like some wild-flaming, 
wild-thundering train of Heaven's Artillery, does this 
mysterious Mankind thunder and flame, in long- 
drawn, quick-succeeding grandeur, through the un- 
known Deep. Thus, like a God-created, fire-breathing 
Spirit-host, we emerge from the Inane ; haste storm- 



276 SARTOR RESARTUS. book in. 

fully across the astonished Earth ; then plunge again 
into the Inane. Earth's mountains are levelled, and 
her seas filled up, in our passage : can the Earth, 
which is but dead and a vision, resist Spirits which 
have reality and are alive ? On the hardest adamant 
some footprint of us is stamped-in ; the last Rear of 
the host will read traces of the earliest Van. But 
whence ? — O Heaven, whither? Sense knows not; 
Faith knows not ; only that it is through Mystery to 
Mystery, from God and to God. 

' We are such stuff, 
As dreams are made of, and our little Life. 
Is rounded with a sleep ! ' " 



CHAPTER IX. 

CIRCUMSPECTIVE. 

Here, then, arises the so momentous question : 
Have many British Readers actually arrived with us 
at the new promised country ; is the Philosophy of 
Clothes now at last opening around them? Long 
and adventurous has the journey been : from those 
outmost vulgar, palpable Woollen Hulls of Man ; 
through his wondrous Flesh-Garments, and his won- 
drous Social Garnitures ; inwards to the Garments of 
his very SouPs Soul, to Time and Space themselves ! 
And now does the spiritual, eternal Essence of Man, 
and of Mankind, bared of such wrappages, begin in any 
measure to reveal itself ? Can many readers discern, 
as through a glass darkly, in huge wavering outlines, 



chap. ix. CIRCUMSPECTIVE. 277 

some primeval rudiments of Man's Being, what is 
changeable divided from what is unchangeable? 
Does that Earth-Spirit's speech in Faust, — 



" 'Tis thus at the roaring Loom of Time I ply, 
And weave for God the Garment thou see'st Him by ; " 

or that other thousand-times repeated speech of the 
Magician, Shakspeare, — 

" And like the baseless fabric of this vision, 
The cloudcapt Towers, the gorgeous Palaces, 
The solemn Temples, the great Globe itself, 
Ahd all which it inherit, shall dissolve ; 
And like this unsubstantial pageant faded, 
Leave not a wrack behind ; " 

begin to have some meaning for us ? In a word, do 
we at length stand safe in the far region of Poetic 
Creation and Palingenesia, where that Phcenix Death- 
Birth of Human Society, and of all Human Things, 
appears possible, is seen to be inevitable? 

Along this most insufficient, unheard-of Bridge, 
which the Editor, by Heaven's blessing, has now seen 
himself enabled to conclude if not complete, it cannot 
be his sober calculation, but only his fond hope, that 
many have travelled without accident. No firm arch, 
overspanning the Impassable with paved highway, 
could the Editor construct ; only, as was said, some 
zigzag series of rafts floating tumultuously thereon. 
Alas, and the leaps from raft to raft were too often of 
a breakneck character ; the darkness, the nature of 
the element, all was against us ! 

Nevertheless, may not here and there one of a thou- 



278 SARTOR RESARTUS. book hi. 

sand, provided with a discursiveness of intellect rare 
in our day, have cleared the passage, in spite of all? 
Happy few ! little band of Friends ! be welcome, be 
of courage. By degrees, the eye grows accustomed 
to its new Whereabout ; the hand can stretch itself 
forth to work there : it is in this grand and indeed 
highest work of Palingenesia that ye shall labor, each 
according to ability. New laborers will arrive ; new 
Bridges will be built ; nay, may not our own poor rope- 
and-raft Bridge, in your passings and repassings, be 
mended in many a point, till it grow quite firm, pass- 
able even for the halt ? 

Meanwhile, of the innumerable multitude that 
started with us, joyous and full of hope, where now 
is the innumerable remainder, whom we see no longer 
by our side? The most have recoiled, and stand 
gazing afar off, in unsympathetic astonishment, at our 
career : not a few, pressing forward w T ith more cour- 
age, have missed footing, or leaped short ; and now 
swim weltering in the Chaos-flood, some towards this 
shore, some towards that. To these also a helping 
hand should be held out ; at least some word of 
encouragemant be said. 

Or, to speak without metaphor, with which mode 
of utterance Teufelsdrdckh unhappily has somewhat 
infected us, — can it be hidden from the Editor that 
many a British Reader sits reading quite bewildered 
in head, and afflicted rather than instructed by the 
present Work? Yes, long ago has many a British 
Reader been, as now, demanding with something 
like a snarl : Whereto does all this lead ; or what use 
is in it? 



ckap. ix. CIRCUMSPECTIVE. 279 

In the way of replenishing thy purse, or otherwise 
aiding thy digestive faculty, O British Reader, it leads 
to nothing, and there is no use in it ; but rather 
the reverse, for it costs thee somewhat. Nevertheless, 
if through this unpromising Horn-gate, Teufels- 
drockh, and we by means of him, have led thee into 
the true Land of Dreams ; and through the Clothes- 
Screen, as through a magical Pierre-Pertuis, thou 
lookest, even for moments, into the region of the 
Wonderful, and seest and feelest that thy daily life is girt 
with Wonder, and based on Wonder, and thy very 
blankets and breeches are Miracles, — then art thou 
profited beyond money^ worth ; and hast a thank- 
fulness towards our Professor ; nay, perhaps in many 
a literary Tea-circle wilt open thy kind lips, and audi- 
bly express that same. 

Nay farther, art not thou too perhaps by this time 
made aware that all Symbols are properly Clothes ; 
that all Forms whereby Spirit manifests itself to 
sense, whether outwardly or in the imagination, are 
Clothes ; and thus not only the parchment Magna 
Charta, which a Tailor was nigh cutting into meas- 
ures, but the Pomp and Authority of Law, the sacred- 
ness of Majesty, and all inferior Worships (Worth- 
ships) are properly a Vesture and Raiment ; and the 
Thirty-nine Articles themselves are articles of wear- 
ing-apparel (for the Religious Idea) ? In which case, 
must it not also be admitted that this Science of 
Clothes is a high one, and may with infinitely deeper 
study on thy part yield richer fruit : that it takes 
scientific rank beside Codification, and Political 
Economy, and the Theory of the British Constitution ; 



280 SARTOR RESARTUS. book hi. 

nay rather, from its prophetic height looks down on 
all these, as on so many weaving-shops and spinning- 
mills, where the Vestures which it has to fashion, and 
consecrate and distribute, are, too often by haggard 
hungry operatives who see no farther than their nose, 
mechanically woven and spun? 

But omitting all this, much more all that concerns 
Natural Supernaturalism, and indeed whatever has 
reference to the Ulterior or Transcendental portion of 
the Science, or bears never so remotely on that prom- 
ised Volume of the Palingenesie der menschlichen 
Gesellschaft (Newbirthof Society) , — we humbly sug- 
gest that no province of Clothes-Philosophy, even the 
lowest, is without its direct value, but that innumerable 
inferences of a practical nature may be drawn there- 
from. To say nothing of those pregnant considera- 
tions, ethical, political, symbolical, which crowd on the 
Clothes-Philosopher from the very threshold of his 
Science ; nothing even of those " architectural ideas," 
which, as we have seen, lurk at the bottom of all Modes, 
and will one day, better unfolding themselves, lead 
to important revolutions, — let us glance for a moment, 
and with the faintest light of Clothes Philosophy, 
on what may be called the Habilatory Class of our 
fellow-men. Here too overlooking, where so much 
were to be looked on, the million spinners, weavers, 
fullers, dyers, washers, and wringers, that puddle and 
muddle in their dark recesses, to make us Clothes, and 
die that we may live, — let us but turn the reader's atten- 
tion upon two small divisions of mankind, who, like 
moths, may be regarded as Cloth-animals, creatures 
that live, move and have their being in Cloth : we 
mean, Dandies and Tailors. 



chap x. THE DANDIACAL BODY. 2 8i 

In regard to both which small divisions it may be 
asserted without scruple, that the public feeling, un- 
enlightened by Philosophy, is at fault ; and even that 
the dictates of humanity are violated. As will per- 
haps abundantly appear to readers of the two follow- 
ing Chapters. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE DANDIACAL BODY. 

First, touching Dandies, let us consider, with 
some scientific strictness, what a Dandy specially is. 
A Dandy is a Clothes-wearing Man, a Man whose 
trade, office and existence consists in the wearing of 
Clothes. Every faculty of his soul, spirit, purse and 
person is heroically consecrated to this one object, 
the wearing of Clothes wisely and well : so that as 
others dress to live, he lives to dress. The all-impor- 
tance of Clothes, which a German Professor, of un- 
equalled learning and acumen, writes his enormous 
Volume to demonstrate, has sprung up in the intellect 
of the Dandy without effort, like an instinct of gen- 
ius ; he is inspired with Cloth, a Poet of Cloth. What 
Teufelsdrockh would call a " Divine Idea of Cloth " 
is born with him ; and this, like other such Ideas, 
will express itself outwardly, or wring his heart asun- 
der with unutterable throes. 

But, like a generous, creative enthusiast, he fear- 
lessly makes his Idea an Action ; shows himself in 
peculiar guise to mankind; walks forth, a witness 



282 SARTOR RESARTUS. book in. 

and living Martyr to the eternal worth of Clothes. 
We called him a Poet : is not his body the (stuffed) 
parchment-skin whereon he writes, with cunning 
Huddersfield dyes, a Sonnet to his mistress 1 eyebrow? 
Say, rather, an Epos, and ClotJia Virumque ca?io, to 
the whole world, in Macaronic verses, which he that 
runs may read. Nay, if you grant, what seems to be 
admissible, that the Dandy has a Thinking-principle 
in him, and some notions of Time and Space, is 
there not in this Life-devotedness to Cloth, in this 
so willing sacrifice of the Immortal to the Perishable, 
something (though in reverse order) of that blending 
and identification of Eternity with Time, which, as 
we have seen, constitutes the Prophetic character? 

And now, for all this perennial Martyrdom, and 
Poesy, and even Prophecy, what is it that the Dandy 
asks in return? Solely, we may say, that you would 
recognize his existence ; would admit him to be a liv- 
ing object ; or even failing this, a visual object, or 
thing that will reflect rays of light. Your silver or 
your gold (beyond what the niggardly Law has 
already secured him) he solicits not ; simply the 
glance of your eyes. Understand his mystic signifi- 
cance, or altogether miss and misinterpret it ; do but 
look at him, and he is contented. May we not 
well cry shame on an ungrateful world, which refuses 
even this poor boon ; which will waste its optic fac- 
ulty on dried Crocodiles, and Siamese Twins ; and 
over the domestic wonderful wonder of wonders, a 
live Dandy, glance with hasty indifference, and a 
scarcely concealed contempt ! Him no Zoologist 
classes among the Mammalia, no Anatomist dissects 



chap. x. THE DANDIACAL BODY. 283 

with care : when did we see any injected Preparation 
of the Dandy in our Museums ; any specimen of him 
preserved in spirits ? Lord Herringbone may dress 
himself in a snufif-brown suit, with snuff-brown shirt 
and shoes : it skills not ; the undiscerning public, 
occupied with grosser wants, passes by regardless 
on the other side. 

The age of Curiosity, like that of Chivalry, is in- 
deed, properly speaking, gone. Yet perhaps only 
gone to sleep : for here arises the Clothes-Philosophy 
to resuscitate, strangely enough both the one and the 
other ! Should sound views of this Science come to 
prevail, the essential nature of the British Dandy, 
and the mystic significance that lies in him, cannot 
always remain hidden under laughable and lament- 
able hallucination. The following long Extract from 
Professor Teufelsdrockh may set the matter, if not in 
its true light, yet in the way towards such. It is to 
be regretted, however, that here, as so often else- 
where, the Professor's keen philosophic perspicacity 
is somewhat marred by a certain mixture of almost 
owlish purblindness, or else of some perverse, inef- 
fectual, ironic tendency ; our readers shall judge 
which : 

" In these distracted times," writes he, " when the 
Religious Principle, driven out of most Churches, 
either lies unseen in the hearts of good men, look- 
ing and longing and silently working there towards 
some new Revelation ; or else wanders homeless 
over the world, like a disembodied soul seeking its 
terrestrial organization, — into how many strange 



284 SARTOR RESARTUS. book hi. 

shapes, of Superstition and Fanaticism, does it 
not tentatively and errantly cast itself! The higher 
Enthusiasm of man's nature is for the while without 
Exponent ; yet does it continue indestructible, un- 
weariedly active, and work blindly in the great chaotic 
deep : thus Sect after Sect, and Church after Church, 
bodies itself forth, and melts again into new met- 
amorphosis. 

" Chiefly is this observable in England, which, as 
the wealthiest and worst-instructed of European 
nations, offers precisely the elements (of Heat, namely, 
and of Darkness), in which such moon-calves and 
monstrosities are best generated. Among the newer 
Sects of that country, one of the most notable, and 
closely connected with our present subject, is that of 
the Dandies; concerning which, what little informa- 
tion I have been able to procure may fitly stand here. 

" It is true, certain of the English Journalists, men 
generally without sense for the Religious Principle, 
or judgment for its manifestations, speak, in their 
brief enigmatic notices, as if this were perhaps rather 
a Secular Sect, and not a Religious one ; neverthe- 
less, to the psychologic eye its devotional and even 
sacrificial character plainly enough reveals itself. 
Whether it belongs to the class of Fetish-worships, 
or of Hero-worships or Polytheisms, or to what other 
class, may in the present state of our intelligence 
remain undecided (schwebeti). A certain touch of 
Manicheism, not indeed in the Gnostic shape, is dis- 
cernible enough : also (for human Error walks in a 
cycle, and reappears at intervals) a not-inconsider- 
able resemblance to that superstition of the Athos 



chap. x. THE DANDIACAL BODY. 285 

Monks, who by fasting from all nourishment, and 
looking intensely for a length of time in their own 
navels, came to discern therein the true Apocalypse 
of Nature and Heaven Unveiled. To my own sur- 
mise, it appears as if this Dandiacal sect were but a 
new modification, adapted to the new time of that 
primeval Superstition, Self-worship ; which Zerdusht, 
Ouangfoutchee, Mohamed, and others, strove rather 
to subordinate and restrain than to eradicate ; and 
which only in the purer forms of Religion has been 
altogether rejected. Wherefore, if any one chooses 
to name it revived Ahrimanism, or a new figure of 
Demon-Worship, I have, so far as is yet visible, no 
objection. 

" For the rest, these people, animated with the zeal 
of a new Sect, display courage and perseverance, and 
what force there is in man's nature, though never so 
enslaved. They affect great purity and separatism ; 
distinguish themselves by a particular costume (where- 
of some notices were given in the earlier part of this 
Volume) ; likewise, so far as possible, by a particular 
speech (apparently some broken Lingua-franca, or 
English-French) ; and, on the whole, strive to main- 
tain a true Nazarene deportment, and keep them- 
selves unspotted from the world. 

" They have their Temples, whereof the chief, as the 
Jewish Temple did, stands in their metropolis ; and 
is named A/mack's, a word of uncertain etymology. 
They worship principally by night ; and have their 
Highpriests and Highpriestesses, who, however, do 
not continue for life. The rites, by some supposed 
to be of the Menadic sort, or perhaps with an Eleu- 



286 SARTOR RESARTUS. book hi. 

sinian or Cabiric character, are held strictly secret. 
Nor are Sacred Books wanting to the Sect ; these 
they call Fashionable Novels : however, the Canon is 
not completed, and some are canonical and others not. 
"Of such Sacred Books, I, not without expense, 
procured myself some samples ; and in hope of true 
insight, and with the zeal which beseems an Inquirer 
into Clothes, sent to interpret and study them. But 
wholly to no purpose : that tough faculty of reading, 
for which the world will not refuse me credit, was 
here for the first time foiled and set at naught. In 
vain that I summoned my whole energies {inich iveid- 
lich anstrengte') , and did my very utmost ; at the end 
of some short space, I was uniformly seized with not 
so much what I can call a drumming in my ears, as a 
kind of infinite, unsufferable JewVharping and 
scrannel-piping there ; to which the frightfullest 
species of Magnetic Sleep soon supervened. And if 
I strove to shake this away, and absolutely would not 
yield, there came a hitherto unfelt sensation, as of 
Delirium Tremens, and a melting into total deliquium : 
till at last, by order of the Doctor, dreading ruin to 
my whole intellectual and bodily faculties, and a gen- 
eral breaking-up of the constitution, I reluctantly but 
determinedly forbore. Was there some miracle at 
work here ; like those Fire-balls, and supernal and 
infernal prodigies, which, in the case of the Jewish 
Mysteries, have also more than once scared-back the 
Alien? Be this as it may, such failure on my part, 
after best efforts, must excuse the imperfection of 
this sketch ; altogether incomplete, yet the complet- 
est I could give of a Sect too singular to be omitted. 



chap. x. THE DANDIACAL BODY. 287 

" Loving my own life and sensec as I do v no power 
shall induce me, as a private individual, to open an- 
other Fashionable Novel. But luckily, in this di- 
lemma, comes a hand from the clouds ; whereby if 
not victory, deliverance is held out to me. Round 
one of those Book-packages, which the Stillschweig- 
en'sche Buchhandlung is in the habit of importing 
from England, come, as is usual, various waste 
printed-sheets (Maculatitr-blatter) , byway of interior 
wrappage : into these the Clothes-Philosopher, with 
a certain Mohamedan reverence even for waste-paper, 
where curious knowledge will sometimes hover, dis- 
tains not to cast his eye. Readers may judge of his 
astonishment when on such a defaced stray-sheet, 
probably the outcast fraction of some English Period- 
ical, such as they name Magazine, appears something 
like a Dissertation on this very subject of Fashionable 
Novels I It sets out, indeed, chiefly from a Secular 
point of view ; directing itself, not without asperity, 
against some to me unknown individual named Pel- 
ham, who seems to be a Mystagogue, and leading 
Teacher and Preacher of the Sect; so that, what 
indeed otherwise was not to be expected in such a 
fugitive fragmentary sheet, the true secret, the Reli- 
gious physiognomy and physiology of the Dandiacal 
Body, is nowise laid fully open there. Nevertheless, 
scattered lights do from time to time sparkle out, 
whereby I have endeavored to profit. Nay, in one 
passage selected from the Prophecies, or Mythic The- 
ogonies, or whatever they are (for the style seems very 
mixed) of this Mystagogue, I find what appears to be 
a Confession of Faith, or Whole Duty of Man, accord- 



288 SARTOR RESARTUS. book hi. 

ing to the tenets of that Sect. Which Confession or 
Whole Duty, therefore, as proceeding from a source 
so authentic, I shall here arrange under Seven dis- 
tinct Articles, and in very abridged shape lay before 
the German world ; therewith taking leave of this 
matter. Observe also, that to avoid possibility of 
error, I, as far as maybe, quote literally from the 
Original : 

"ARTICLES OF FAITH. 

' I . Coats should have nothing of the triangle 
about them ; at the same time, wrinkles behind 
should be carefully avoided. 

' 2. The collar is a very important point : it should 
be low behind, and slightly rolled. 

'3. No license of fashion can allow a man of deli- 
cate taste to adopt the posterial luxuriance of a Hot- 
tentot. 

'4. There is safety in a swallow-tail. 

'5. The good sense of a gentleman is nowhere 
more finely developed than in his rings. 

' 6. It is permitted to mankind, under certain re- 
strictions, to wear white waistcoats. 

'7. The trousers must be exceedingly tight across 
the hips. 1 

" All which Propositions I, for the present, content 
myself with modestly but peremptorily and irrevoca- 
bly denying. 

"In strange contrast with this Dandiacal Body 
stands another British Sect, originally, as I under- 
stand, of Ireland, where its chief seat still is ; but 
known also in the main Island, and indeed every- 



chap. x. THE DANDIACAL BODY. 289 

• 

where rapidly spreading. As this Sect has hitherto 
emitted no Canonical Books, it remains to me in the 
same state of obscurity as the Dandiacal, which has 
published Books that the unassisted human faculties 
are inadequate to read. The members appear to be 
designated by a considerable diversity of names, ac- 
cording to their various places of establishment : in 
England they are generally called the Drudge Sect ; 
also, unphilosophically enough, the White Negroes ; 
and, chiefly in scorn by those of other communions, 
the Ragged-Beggar Sect. In Scotland, again, I find 
them entitled Hallanskakers, or the Stook of Duds 
Sect ; any individual communicant is named Stook of 
Duds (that is, Shock of Rags), in allusion, doubtless, 
to their professional Costume. While in Ireland, 
which, as mentioned, is their grand parent hive, they 
go by a perplexing multiplicity of designations, such 
as Bogtrotters, Redshanks, Ribbonmen, Cottiers, Peep- 
of-Day Boys, Babes of the Wood, Roc kites, Poor- 
Slaves : which last, however, seems to be the pri- 
mary and generic name ; whereto, probably enough, 
the others are only subsidiary species, or slight varie- 
ties ; or, at most, propagated offsets from the parent 
stem, whose minute subdivisions, and shades of dif- 
ference, it were here loss of time to dwell on. Enough 
for us to understand, what seems indubitable, that 
the original Sect is that of the Poor-Slaves ; whose 
doctrines, practices, and fundamental characteristics 
pervade and animate the whole Body, howsoever 
denominated or outwardly diversified. 

"The precise speculative tenets of this Brother- 
hood : how the Universe, and Man, and Man's Life, 



290 SARTOR RESARTUS. book hi. 

• 

picture themselves to the mind of an Irish Poor-Slave ; 
with what feelings and opinions he looks forward on 
the Future, round on the Present, back on the Past, 
it were extremely difficult to specify. Something 
Monastic there appears to be in their Constitution : 
we find them bound by the two Monastic Vows, of 
Poverty and Obedience ; which Vows, especially the 
former, it is said, they observe with great strictness ; 
nay, as I have understood it, they are pledged, and be 
it by any solemn Nazarene ordination or not, irrevo- 
cably consecrated thereto, even before birth. That 
the third Monastic Vow, of Chastity, is rigidly 
enforced among them, I find no ground to conjec- 
ture. 

"Furthermore, they appear to imitate the Dandia- 
cal Sect in their grand principle of wearing a peculiar 
Costume. Of which Irish Poor-Slave Costume no 
description will indeed be found in the present Vol- 
ume ; for this reason, that by the imperfect organ of 
Language it did not seem describable. Their raiment 
consists of innumerable skirts, lappets and irregular 
wings, of all cloths and of all colors ; through the 
labyrinthic intricacies of which their bodies are intro- 
duced by some unknown process. It is fastened 
together by a multiplex combination of buttons, thrums 
and skewers ; to which frequently is added a girdle of 
leather, of hempen or even of straw rope, round the 
loins. To straw rope, indeed, they seem partial, and 
often wear it by way of sandals. In head-dress they 
affect a certain freedom : hats with partial brim, with- 
out crown, or with only a loose, hinged, or valved 
crown ; in the former case, they sometimes invert the 



chap. x. THE DANDIACAL BODY. 291 

hat, and wear it brim uppermost, like a University- 
cap, with what view is unknown. 

" The name Poor-Slaves seems to indicate a Slav- 
onic, Polish, or Russian origin : not so, however, the 
interior essence and spirit of their Superstition, 
which rather displays a Teutonic or Druidical 
character. One might fancy them worshippers of 
Hertha, or the Earth : for they dig and affectionately 
work continually in her bosom ; or else, shut-up in 
private Oratories, meditate and manipulate the sub- 
stances derived from her ; seldom looking-up towards 
the Heavenly Luminaries, and then with comparative 
indifference. Like the Druids, on the other hand, 
they live in dark dwellings ; often even breaking 
their glass-windows, where they find such, and stuf- 
fing them up with pieces of raiment, or other opaque 
substances, till the fit obscurity is restored. Again, 
like all followers of Nature-Worship, they are liable 
to outbreakings of an enthusiasm rising to ferocity ; 
and burn men, if not in wicker idols, yet in sod cot- 
tages. 

" In respect of diet, they have also their observances. 
All Poor-Slaves are Rhizophagous (or Root-eaters) ; 
a few are Ichthyophagous, and use Salted Herrings : 
other animal food they abstain from ; except indeed, 
with perhaps some strange inverted fragment of a 
Brahminical feeling, such animals as die a natural 
death. Their universal sustenance is the root named 
Potato, cooked by fire alone ; and generally without 
condiment or relish of any kind, save an unknown 
condiment named Point, into the meaning of which I 
have vainly inquired ; the victual Potatoes-and-Point 



292 SARTOR RESARTUS. book hi. 

not appearing, at least not with specific accuracy of de- 
scription, in any European Cookery-Book whatever. 
For drink, they use, with an almost epigrammatic 
counterpoise of taste, Milk, which is the mildest of 
liquors, and Potheen, which is the fiercest. This latter 
I have tasted, as well as the English Blue-Ruin, and 
the Scotch Whisky, analogous fluids used by the 
Sect in those countries : it evidently contains some 
form of alcohol, in the highest state of concentration, 
though disguised with acrid oils ; and is, on the 
whole, the most pungent substance known to me, — 
indeed, a perfect liquid fire. In all their Religious 
Solemnities, Potheen is said to be an indispensable 
requisite, and largely consumed. 

" An Irish Traveller, of perhaps common veracity, 
who presents himself under the to me unmeaning title 
of The late Jolm Bernard, offers the following sketch 
of a domestic establishment, the inmates whereof, 
though such is not stated expressly, appear to have 
been of that Faith. Thereby shall my German 
readers now behold an Irish Poor-Slave, as it were 
with their own eyes ; and even see him at meat. 
Moreover, in the so precious waste-paper sheet above 
mentioned, I have found some corresponding picture 
of a Dandiacal Household, painted by that same 
Dandiacal Mystagogue, or Theogonist : this also, by 
way of counterpart and contrast, the world shall look 
into. 

"First, therefore, of the Poor-Slave, who appears 
likewise to have been a species of Innkeeper. I 
quote from the original-. 



chap x. THE DANDIACAL BODY. 293 

Poor-Slave Household. 

" ' The furniture of this Caravansera consisted of a 
large iron Pot, two oaken Tables, two Benches, two 
Chairs, and a Potheen Noggin. There was a Loft 
above (attainable by a ladder), upon which the in- 
mates slept ; and the space below was divided by a 
hurdle into two Apartments ; the one for their cow 
and pig, the other for themselves and guests. On 
entering the house we discovered the family, eleven 
in number, at dinner : the father sitting at the top, 
the mother at the bottom, the children on each side, 
of a large oaken Board, which was scooped-out in the 
middle, like a trough, to receive the contents of their 
Pot of Potatoes. Little holes were cut at equal dis- 
tances to contain Salt ; .and a bowl of Milk stood on 
the table : all the luxuries of meat and beer, bread, 
knives and dishes were dispensed with. 1 The Poor- 
Slave himself our Traveller found, as he says, broad- 
backed, black-browed, of great personal strength, 
and mouth from ear to ear. His Wife was a sun- 
browned but well-featured woman ; -and his young 
ones, bare and chubby, had the appetite of ravens. 
Of their Philosophical or Religious tenets or obser- 
vances, no notice or hint. 

" But now, secondly, of the Dandiacal Household; 
in which, truly, that often-mentioned Mystagogue and 
inspired Penman himself has his abode : 

Dandiacal Household. 
" ' A Dressing-room splendidly furnished ; violet- 
colored curtains, chairs and ottomans of the same 
hue. Two full-length Mirrors are placed, one on each 



294 SARTOR RESARTUS. book hi. 

side of a table, which supports the luxuries of the 
Toilet. Several Bottles of Perfumes, arranged in a 
peculiar fashion, stand upon a smaller table of 
mother-of-pearl : opposite to these are placed the 
appurtenances of Lavation richly wrought in frosted 
silver. A Wardrobe of Buhl is on the left ; the 
doors of which, being partly open, discover a pro- 
fusion of Clothes ; Shoes of a singularly small size 
monopolize the lower shelves. Fronting the ward- 
robe a door ajar gives some slight glimpse of a 
Bathroom. Folding-doors in the background. — 
Enter the Author, 1 our Theogonist in person, 
' obsequiously preceded by a French Valet, in white 
silk Jacket and cambric Apron.' 

" Such are the two Sects which, at this moment, 
divide the more unsettled portion of the British 
People ; and agitate that ever-vexed country. To the 
eye of the political Seer, their mutual relation, preg- 
nant with the elements of discord and hostility, is far 
from consoling. These two principles of Dandiacal 
Self-worship or Demon-worship, and Poor-Slavish or 
Drudgical Earth-worship, or whatever that same 
Drudgism may be, do as yet indeed manifest them- 
selves under distant and nowise considerable shapes : 
nevertheless, in their roots and subterranean rami- 
fications, they extend through the entire structure of 
Society, and work unweariedly in the secret depths of 
English national Existence ; striving to separate and 
isolate it into two contradictory, uncommunicating 
masses. 

" In numbers, and even individual strength, the 



chap. x. THE DANDIACAL BODY. 295 

Poor-Slaves or Drudges, it would seem, are hourly 
increasing. The Dandiacal, again, is by nature no 
proselytizing Sect; but it boasts of great hereditary 
resources, and is strong by union ; whereas the 
Drudges, split into parties, have as yet no rallying- 
point ; or at best only co-operate by means of partial 
secret affiliations. If, indeed, there were to arise a 
Communion of Drudges, as there is already a Com- 
munion of Saints, what strangest effects would follow 
therefrom ! Dandyism as yet affects to look-down 
on Drudgism : but perhaps the hour of trial, when it 
will be practically seen which ought to look down, and 
which up, is not so distant. 

"To me it seems probable that the two Sects will 
one day part England between them ; each recruit- 
ing itself from the intermediate ranks, till there be 
none left to enlist on either side. Those Dandiacal 
Manicheans, with the host of Dandyizing Christians, 
will form one body: the Drudges, gathering round 
them whosoever is Drudgical, be he Christian or 
Infidel Pagan ; sweeping-up likewise all manner of 
Utilitarians, Radicals, refractory Potwallopers, and 
so forth, into their general mass, will form another. 
I could liken Dandyism and Drudgism to two bottom- 
less boiling Whirlpools that had broken-out on 
opposite quarters of the firm land : as yet they 
appear only disquieted, foolishly bubbling wells, 
which man's art might cover-in ; yet mark them, 
their diameter is daily widening : they are hollow 
Cones that boil-up from the infinite Deep, over which 
your firm land is but a thin crust or rind ! Thus 
daily is the intermediate land crumbling-in, daily the 



296 SARTOR RESARTUS. book hi. 

empire of the two Buchan-Bullers extending ; till now 
there is but a foot-plank, a mere film of Land be- 
tween them ; this too is washed away : and then — 
we have the true Hell of Waters, and Noah's Deluge 
is outdeluged ! 

" Or better, I might call them two boundless, and 
indeed unexampled Electric Machines (turned by the 
' Machinery of Society ' ) , with batteries of opposite 
quality ; Drudgism the Negative, Dandyism the Posi- 
tive : one attracts hourly towards it and appropriates 
all the Positive Electricity of the nation (namely, the 
Money thereof) ; the other is equally busy with the 
Negative (that is to say the Hunger) , which is equally 
potent. Hitherto you see only partial transient 
sparkles and sputters : but wait a little, till the entire 
nation is in an electric state ; till your whole vital 
Electricity, no longer healthfully Neutral, is cut into 
two isolated portions of Positive and Negative (of 
Money and of Hunger) ; and stands there bottled-up 
in two World-Batteries ! The stirring of a child's 
finger brings the two together; and then — What 
then? The Earth is but shivered into impalpable 
smoke by that Doom's-thunderpeal ; the Sun misses 
one of his Planets in Space, and thenceforth there 
are no eclipses of the Moon. — Or better still, I might 
liken " 

O, enough, enough of likenings and similitudes ; 
in excess of which, truly, it is hard to say whether 
Teufelsdrockh or ourselves sin the more. 

We have often blamed him for a habit of wire- 
drawing and over-refining ; from of old we have been 
familiar with his tendency to Mysticism and Religi- 



chap. x. THE DANDIACAL BODY. 297 

osity, whereby in everything he was still scenting-out 
Religion : but never perhaps did these amaurosis- 
suffusions so cloud and distort his otherwise most 
piercing vision, as in this of the Dandiacal Body I 
Or was there something of intended satire ; is the 
Professor and Seer not quite the blinkard he affects 
to be? Of an ordinary mortal we should have deci- 
sively answered in the affirmative ; but with a Teu- 
felsdrockh there ever hovers some shade of doubt. 
In the mean while, if satire were actually intended, 
the case is little better. There are not wanting men 
who will answer : Does your Professor take us for 
simpletons? His irony has overshot itself; we see 
through it, and perhaps through him. 



CHAPTER XL 

TAILORS. 

Thus, however, has our first Practical Inference 
from the Clothes-Philosophy, that which respects 
Dandies, been sufficiently drawn ; and we come now 
to the second, concerning Tailors. On this latter 
our opinion happily quite coincides with that of Teu- 
felsdrockh himself, as expressed in the concluding 
page of his Volume, to whom, therefore, we willingly 
give place. Let him speak his own last words, in his 
own way : 

"Upwards of a century," says he, "must elapse, 
and still the bleeding fight of Freedom be fought, 



298 SARTOR RESARTUS. book hi. 

whoso is noblest perishing in the van, and thrones be 
hurled on altars like Pelion on Ossa, and the Moloch 
of Iniquity have his victims, and the Michael of Jus- 
tice his martyrs, before Tailors can be admitted to 
their true prerogatives of manhood, and this last 
wound of suffering Humanity be closed. 

" If aught in the history of the world's blindness 
could surprise us, here might we indeed pause and won- 
der. An idea has gone abroad, and fixed itself down 
into a wide-spreading rooted error, that Tailors are a 
distinct species in Physiology, not Men, but frac- 
tional Parts of a Man. Call any one a Schneider 
(Cutter, Tailor), is it not, in our dislocated, hood- 
winked, and indeed delirious condition of Society, 
equivalent to defying his perpetual fellest enmity? 
The epithet schneider-massig (tailor-like) betokens 
an otherwise unapproachable degree of pusillanimity : 
we introduce a Tailor's-Melancholy, more opprobrious 
than any Leprosy, into our Books of Medicine ; and 
fable I know not what of his generating it by living 
on Cabbage. Why should I speak of Hans Sachs 
(himself a Shoemaker, or kind of Leather-Tailor), 
with his Schneider mil dem Panier ? Why of Shak- 
speare, in his Taming of the Shrew, and elsewhere? 
Does it not stand on record that the English Queen 
Elizabeth, receiving a deputation of Eighteen Tailors, 
addressed them with a ' Good morning, gentlemen 
both ! ' Did not the same virago boast that she had 
a Cavalry Regiment, whereof neither horse nor man 
could be injured ; her Regiment, namely, of Tailors 
on Mares ? Thus everywhere is the falsehood taken 
for granted, and acted on as an indisputable fact. 



chap. xi. TAILORS. 299 

"Nevertheless, need I put the question to any 
Physiologist, whether it is disputable or not? Seems 
it not at least presumable, that, under his Clothes, 
the Tailor has bones and viscera, and other muscles 
than the sartorious ? Which function of manhood is 
the Tailor not conjectured to perform? Can he not 
arrest for debt? Is he not in most countries a tax- 
paying animal ? 

" To no reader of this Volume can it be doubtful 
which conviction is mine. Nay if the fruit of these 
long vigils, and almost preternatural Inquiries, is not 
to perish utterly, the world will have approximated 
towards a higher Truth ; and the doctrine, which 
Swift, with the keen forecast of genius, dimly antici- 
pated, will stand revealed in clear light : that the 
Tailor is not only a Man, but something of a Creator 
or Divinity. Of Franklin it was said, that ' he 
snatched the Thunder from Heaven and the Sceptre 
from Kings : ' but which is greater, I would ask, he 
that lends, or he that snatches? For, looking away 
from individual cases, and how a Man is by the Tailor 
new-created into a Nobleman, and clothed not only 
with Wool but with Dignity and a Mystic Dominion, 
— is not the fair fabric of Society itself, with all its 
royal mantles and pontifical stoles, whereby, from 
nakedness and dismemberment, we are organized into 
Polities, into nations, and a whole co-operating Man- 
kind, the creation, as has here been often irrefragably 
evinced, of the Tailor alone ? — What too are all Poets 
and moral Teachers, but a species of Metaphorical 
Tailors? Touching which high Guild the greatest 
living Guild-brother has triumphantly asked us: 



300 SARTOR RESARTUS. book ill. 

1 Nay if thou wilt have it, who but the Poet first made 
Gods for men ; brought them down to us ; and raised 
us up to them ? ' 

" And this is he, whom sitting downcast, on the 
hard basis of his Shopboard, the world treats with 
contumely, as the ninth part of a man ! Look up, 
thou much-injured one, look up with the kindling eye 
of hope, and prophetic bodings of a noble better 
time. Too long hast thou sat there, on crossed legs, 
wearing thy ankle-joints to horn ; like some sacred 
Anchorite, or Catholic Fakir, doing penance, draw- 
ing down Heaven's richest blessings, for a world 
that scoffed at thee. Be of hope ! Already streaks 
of blue peer through our clouds ; the thick gloom of 
Ignorance is rolling asunder, and it will be Day. 
Mankind will repay with interest their long-accumu- 
lated debt : the Anchorite that was scoffed at will be 
worshipped ; The Fraction will become not an In- 
teger only, but a Square and Cube. With astonish- 
ment the world will recognize that the Tailor is its 
Hierophant and Hierarch, or even its God. 

"As I stood in the Mosque of St. Sophia, and 
looked upon these Four-and-Twenty Tailors, sewing 
and embroidering that rich Cloth, which the Sultan 
sends yearly for the Caaba of Mecca, I thought 
within myself: How many other Unholies has your 
covering Art made holy, besides this Arabian Whin- 
stone ! 

"Still more touching was it when, turning the 
corner of a lane, in the Scottish Town of Edinburgh, 
I came upon a Signpost, whereon stood written that 
such and such a one was ' Breeches-Maker to his 



chap. xn. FAREWELL. 301 

Majesty ;' and stood painted the Effigies of a Pair of 
Leather Breeches, and between the knees these 
memorable words, Sic itur ad astra. Was not 
■ this the martyr prison-speech of a Tailor sighing 
indeed in bonds, yet sighing towards deliverance, and 
prophetically appealing to a better day? A day of 
justice, when the worth of Breeches would be re- 
vealed to man, and the Scissors become forever 
venerable. 

" Neither, perhaps, may I now say, has his appeal 
been altogether in vain. It was in this high moment, 
when the soul, rent, as it were, and shed asunder, 
is open to inspiring influence, that I first conceived 
this Work on Clothes : the greatest I can ever hope 
to do ; which has already, after long retardations, 
occupied, and will yet occupy, so large a section of 
my Life ; and of which the Primary and simpler 
Portion may here find its conclusion." 



CHAPTER XII. 

FAREWELL. 

So have we endeavored, from the enormous, amor- 
phous Plum-pudding, more like a Scottish Haggis, 
which Herr Teufelsdrockh had kneaded for his fellow 
mortals, to pick out the choicest Plums, and present 
them separately on a cover of our own. A laborious, 
perhaps a thankless enterprise ; in which, however, 
something of hope has occasionally cheered us, and 
of which we can now wash our hands not altogether 



302 SARTOR RESARTUS. book in. 

without satisfaction. If hereby, though in barbaric 
wise, some morsel of spiritual nourishment have 
been added to the scanty ration of our beloved 
British world, what nobler recompense could the 
Editor desire? If it prove otherwise, why should 
he murmur? Was not this a Task which Destiny, 
in any case, had appointed him ; which having now 
done with, he sees his general DayVwork so much 
the lighter, so much the shorter? 

Of Professor Teufelsdrockh it seems impossible to 
take leave without a mingled feeling of astonishment, 
gratitude and disapproval. Who will not regret that 
talents, which might have profited in the higher 
walks of Philosophy, or in Art itself, have been so 
much devoted to a rummaging among lumber-rooms ; 
nay, too often to a scraping in kennels, where lost 
rings and diamond-necklaces are nowise the sole con- 
quests? Regret is unavoidable; yet censure were 
loss of time. To cure him of his mad humors British 
Criticism would essay in vain : enough for her if she 
can, by vigilance, prevent the spreading of such 
among ourselves. What a result, should this piebald, 
entangled, hyper-metaphorical style of writing, not to 
say of thinking, become general among our Literary 
men ! As it might so easily do. Thus has not the 
Editor himself, working over Teufelsdrockh's Ger- 
man, lost much of his own English purity? Even as 
the smaller whirlpool is sucked into the larger, and 
made to whirl along with it, so has the lesser mind, 
in this instance, been forced to become portion of 
the greater, and, like it, see all things figuratively : 
which habit time and assiduous effort will be needed 
to eradicate. 



chap. xii. FAREWELL. 303 

Nevertheless, wayward as our Professor shows 
himself, is there any reader that can part with him 
in declared enmity? Let us confess, there is that in 
the wild, much-suffering, much-inflicting man, which 
almost attaches us. His attitude, we will hope and 
believe, is that of a man who had said to Cant, Be- 
gone ; and to Dilettantism, Here thou canst not be ; 
and to Truth, Be thou in place of all to me : a man 
who had manfully defied the " Time-prince," or Devil, 
to his face ; nay perhaps, Hannibal-like, was mys- 
teriously consecrated from birth to that warfare, and 
now stood minded to wage the same, by all weapons, 
in all places, at all times. In such a cause, any sol- 
dier, were he but a Polack Scythe-man, shall be wel- 
come. 

Still the question returns on us : How could a 
man occasionally of keen insight, not without keen 
sense of propriety, who had real Thoughts to com- 
municate, resolve to emit them in a shape bordering 
so closely on the absurd ? Which question he were 
wiser than the present Editor who should satisfac- 
torily answer. Our conjecture has sometimes been, 
that perhaps Necessity as well as Choice was con- 
cerned in it. Seems it not conceivable that, in a 
Life like our Professors, where so much bountifully 
given by Nature had in Practice failed and misgone, 
Literature also would never rightly prosper : that 
striving with his characteristic vehemence to paint 
this and the other Picture, and ever without success, 
he at last desperately dashes his sponge, full of all 
colors, against the canvas, to try whether it will 
paint Foam? With all his stillness, there were 



304 SARTOR RESARTUS. book hi. 

perhaps in Teufelsdrockh desperation enough for 
this. 

A second conjecture we hazard with even less war- 
ranty. It is, that Teufelsdrockh is not without some 
touch of the universal feeling, a wish to proselytize. 
How often already have we paused, uncertain 
whether the basis of this so enigmatic nature were 
really Stoicism and Despair, or Love and Hope only 
seared into the figure of these ! Remarkable, more- 
over, is this saying of his : "How were Friendship 
possible? In mutual devotedness to the Good and 
True : otherwise impossible ; except as Armed 
Neutrality, or hollow Commercial League. A man, 
be the Heavens ever praised, is sufficient for himself; 
yet were ten men, united in Love, capable' of being 
and of doing what ten thousand singly would fail 
in. Infinite is the help man can yield to man." 
And now in conjunction therewith consider this other : 
" It is the Night of the World, and still long till it 
be Day : we wander amid the glimmer of smoking 
ruins, and the Sun and the Stars of Heaven are as 
if blotted out for a season ; and two immeasurable 
Phantoms, Hypocrisy and Atheism, with the Gowl, 
Sensuality, stalk abroad over the Earth, and call it 
theirs : well at ease are the Sleepers for whom Exist- 
ence is a shallow Dream. 11 

But what of the awestruck Wakeful who find it a 
Reality? Should not these unite; since even an 
authentic Spectre is not visible to Two ? — In which 
case were this enormous Clothes-Volume properly an 
enormous Pitchpan, which our Teufelsdrockh in his 
lone watchtower had kindled, that it might flame far 



chap. xii. FAREWELL. 305 

and wide through the Night, and many a disconso- 
lately wandering spirit be guided thither to a Broth- 
er's bosom ! — We say as before, with all his malign 
Indifference, who knows what mad Hopes' this man 
may harbor? 

Meanwhile there is one fact to be stated here, 
which harmonizes ill with such conjecture ; and, in- 
deed, were Teufelsdrockh made like other men, might 
as good as altogether subvert it. Namely, that while 
the Beacon-fire blazed its brightest, the Watchman 
had quitted it ; that no pilgrim could now ask him : 
Watchman, what of the Night? Professor Teufels- 
drockh, be it known, is no longer visibly present at 
Weissnichtwo, but again to all appearance lost in 
space ! Some time ago, the Hofrath Heuschrecke 
was pleased to favor us with another copious Epis- 
tle ; wherein much is said about the "Population- 
Institute ; " much repeated in praise of the Paper- 
bag Documents, the hieroglyphic nature of which 
our Hofrath still seems not to have surmised ; and, 
lastly, the strangest occurrence communicated, to us 
for'the first time, in the following paragraph : 

" Ew. Wohlgeboren will have seen from the public 
Prints, with what affectionate and hitherto fruitless 
solicitude Weissnichtwo regards the disappearance of 
her Sage. Might but the united voice of Germany 
prevail on him to return ; nay, could we but so much 
as elucidate for ourselves by what mystery he went 
away ! But, alas, old Lieschen experiences or affects 
the profoundest deafness, the profoundest ignorance : 
in the Wahngasse all lies swept, silent, sealed up ; 
the Privy Council itself can hitherto elicit no answer. 



306 SARTOR RESARTUS. book hi. 

" It had been remarked that while the agitating 
news of those Parisian Three Days flew from mouth 
to mouth, and dinned every ear in Weissnichtwo, 
Herr Teufelsdrockh was not known, at the Gans or 
elsewhere, to have spoken, for a whole week, any 
syllable except once these three : Es geht a?i (It is 
beginning). Shortly after, as Ew. Wohlgeboren 
knows, was the public tranquillity here, as in Berlin, 
threatened by a Sedition of the Tailors. Nor did there 
want Evil-wishers, or perhaps mere desperate Alarm- 
ists, who asserted that the closing Chapter of the 
Clothes-Volume was to blame. In this appalling 
crisis, the serenity of our Philosopher was inde- 
scribable : nay, perhaps through one humble indi- 
vidual, something thereof might pass into the Rath 
(Council) itself, and so contribute to the country's 
deliverance. The Tailors are now entirely pacifi- 
cated. — 

" To neither of these two incidents can I attribute 
our loss : yet still comes there the shadow of a sus- 
picion out of Paris and its Politics. For example, 
when the Saint-Simonian Society transmitted its Pro- 
positions hither, and the whole Gans was one vast 
cackle of laughter, lamentation and astonishment, 
our Sage sat mute ; and at the end of the third even- 
ing said merely : ' Here also are men who have dis- 
covered, not without amazement, that Man is still 
Man ; of which high, long-forgotten Truth you 
already see them make a false application.' Since 
then, as has been ascertained by examination of the 
Post-Director, there passed at least one Letter with 
its Answer between the Messieurs Bazard-Enfantin 



chap. xii. FAREWELL. 3°7 

and our Professor himself; of what tenor can now 
only be conjectured. On the fifth night following, 
he was seen for the last time ! 

"Has this invaluable man, so obnoxious to most 
of the hostile Sects that convulse our Era, been 
spirited away by certain of their emissaries ; or did 
he go forth voluntarily to their headquarters to con- 
fer with them and confront them? Reason we have, 
at least of a negative sort, to believe the Lost still 
living ; our widowed heart also whispers that ere long 
he will himself give a sign. Otherwise, indeed, his 
archives must, one day, be opened by Authority; 
where much, perhaps the Palingenesie itself, is 
thought to be reposited." 

Thus far the Hofrath ; who vanishes, as is his 
wont, too like an Ignis Fatuus, leaving the dark still 
darker. 

So that Teufelsdrockh's public History were not 
done, then, or reduced to an even, unromantic tenor : 
nay, perhaps the better part thereof were only begin- 
ning? We stand in a region of conjectures, where 
substance has melted into shadow, and one cannot 
be distinguished from the other. May time, which 
solves or suppresses all problems, throw glad light on 
this also ! Our own private conjecture, now amount- 
ing almost to certainty, is that, safe-moored in some 
stillest obscurity, not to lie always still, Teufelsdrockh 
is actually in London ! 

Here, however, can the present Editor, with an 
ambrosial joy as of over-weariness falling into sleep, 
lay down his pen. Well does he know, if human tes- 



308 SARTOR RESARTUS. book hi. 

timony be worth aught, that to innumerable British 
readers likewise, this is a satisfying consummation ; 
that innumerable British readers consider him, during 
these current months, but as an uneasy interruption 
to their ways of thought and digestion ; and indicate 
so much, not without a certain irritancy and even 
spoken invective. For which, as for other mercies, 
ought not he to thank the Upper Powers? To one 
and all of you, O irritated readers, he, with out- 
stretched arms and open heart, will wave a kind fare- 
well. Thou too, miraculous Entity, who namest 
thyself Yorke and Oliver, and with thy vivacities 
and genialities, with thy ail-too Irish mirth and mad- 
ness, and odor of palled punch, makest such strange 
work, farewell; long as thou canst izx^-welll Have 
we not, in the course of Eternity, travelled some 
months of our Life-journey in partial sight of one 
another ; have we not existed together, though in a 
state of quarrel ? 



APPENDIX. 



This questionable little Book was undoubtedly 
written among the mountain solitudes, in 1831 ; but, 
owing to impediments natural and accidental, could 
not, for seven years more, appear as a Volume in 
England; — and had at last to clip itself in pieces, 
and be content to struggle out, bit by bit, in some 
courageous Magazine that offered. Whereby now, 
to certain idly curious readers, and even to myself 
till I make study, the insignificant but at last irritat- 
ing question, What its real history and chronology 
are, is, if not insoluble, considerably involved in 
haze. 

To the first English Edition, 1838, which an Am- 
erican, or two Americans, had now opened the way 
for, there was slightingly prefixed, under the title 
" Testi7nonies of Authors? some straggle of real 
documents, which, now that I find it again, sets 
the matter into clear light and sequence ; — and shall 
here, for removal of idle stumbling-blocks and 
nugatory guessings from the path of every reader, 
be reprinted as it stood. {Author's Note of 1868.) 



309 



3io APPENDIX. 

TESTIMONIES OF AUTHORS. 
I. Highest Class, Bookseller's Taster. 

Taster to Bookseller. — "The Author of Tenfels- 
dr'ockh is a person of talent ; his work displays here 
and there some felicity of thought and expression, 
considerable fancy and knowledge : but whether or 
not it would take with the public seems doubtful. 
For 2ijeu cfesprit of that kind it is too long ; it would 
have suited better as an essay or article than as a 
volume. The Author has no great tact; his wit is 
frequently heavy ; and reminds one of the German 
Baron who took to leaping on tables, and answered 
that he was learning to be lively. Is the work a 
translation ? " 

Bookseller to Editor. — " Allow me to say that such 
a writer requires only a little more tact to produce a 
popular as well as an able work. Directly on re- 
ceiving your permission, I sent your MS. to a gentle- 
man in the highest class of men of letters, and an 
accomplished German scholar: I now enclose you 
his opinion, which, you may rely upon it, is a just 
one ; and I have too high an opinion of your good 
sense to" &c. &c. — MS. {penes nos), London, ijth 
September 1831. 

II. Critic of the Sun. 
" Eraser's Magazine exhibits the usual brilliancy, 
and also the " &c. '■'■Sartor Resarhts is what old 
Dennis used to call ' a heap of clotted nonsense,' 



APPENDIX. 311 

mixed however, here and there, with passages 
marked by thought and striking poetic vigor. But 
what does the writer mean by ' Baphometic fire- 
baptism ' ? Why cannot he lay aside his pedantry, 
and write so as to make himself generally intel- 
ligible ? We quote by way of curiosity a sentence 
from the Sartor Resartus ; which may be read either 
backwards or forwards, for it is equally intelligible 
either way : indeed, by beginning at the tail, and 
so working up to the head, we think the reader will 
stand the fairest chance of getting at its meaning : 
* The fire-baptized soul, long so scathed and thunder- 
riven, here feels its own . freedom ; which feeling is 
its Baphometic baptism : the citadel of its whole 
kingdom it has thus gained by assault, and will keep 
inexpugnable ; outwards from which the remaining 
dominions, not indeed without hard battering, will 
doubtless by degrees be conquered and pacificated.'' 

Here is a" — — Sun Newspaper, 1st April 

1834. 

III. North-American Reviewer. 

" After a careful survey of the whole 

ground, our belief is that no such persons as Pro- 
fessor Teufelsdrockh or Counsellor Heuschrecke ever 
existed; that the six Paper-bags, with their China- 
ink inscriptions and multifarious contents, are a mere 
figment of the brain ; that the ' present Editor ' is 
the only person who has ever written upon the Phil- 
osophy of Clothes ; and that the Sartor Resartus is 
the only treatise that has yet appeared upon that sub- 
ject ; — in short, that the whole account of the origin 



312 APPENDIX. 

of the work before us, which the supposed Editor 
relates with so much gravity, and of which we have 
given a brief abstract, is, in plain English, a hum. 

" Without troubling our readers at any great length 
with our reasons for entertaining these suspicions, 
we may remark, that the absence of all other informa- 
tion on the subject, except what is contained in the 
work, is itself a fact of a most significant character. 
The whole German press, as well as the particular 
one where the work purports to have been printed, 
seems to be under the control of Stillschweigen and 
Co. — Silence and Company. If the Clothes-Philos- 
ophy and its author are making so great a sensation 
throughout Germany as is pretended, how happens 
it that the only notice we have of the fact is contained 
in a few numbers of a monthly Magazine published at 
London? How happens it that no intelligence about 
the matter has come out directly to this country? 
We pique ourselves here in New England upon 
knowing at least as much of what is going on in the 
literary way in the old Dutch Mother-land as our 
brethren of the fast-anchored Isle ; but thus far we 
have no tidings whatever of the ' extensive close- 
printed close-meditated volume, 1 which forms the 
subject of this pretended commentary. Again, we 
would respectfully inquire of the ' present Editor' 
upon what part of the map of Germany we are to 
look for the city of Weissnichtwo — 'Know-not-where' 
— at which place the work is supposed to nave been 
printed, and the Author to have resided. It has been 
our fortune to visit several portions of the German 
territory, and to examine pretty carefully, at different 



APPENDIX. 313 

times and for various purposes, maps of the whole ; 
but we have no recollection of any such place. We 
suspect that the city of Know-not-where might be 
called, with at least as much propriety, N~obody-knows~ 
where, and is to be found in the kingdom of Nowhere. 
Again, the village of Entepfuhl — 'Duck-pond 1 — 
where the supposed Author of the work is said to 
have passed his youth, and that of Hinterschlag, 
where he had his education, are equally foreign 
to our geography. Duck-ponds enough there un- 
doubtedly are in almost every village in Germany, 
as the traveller in that country knows too well to his 
cost, but any particular village denominated Duck- 
pond is to us altogether terra incognita. The names 
of the personages are not less singular than those of 
the places. Who can refrain from a smile at the yok- 
ing together of such a pair of appellatives as Diogenes 
Teufelsdrockh ? The supposed bearer of this strange 
title is represented as admitting, in his pretended 
autobiography, that ' he had searched to no purpose 
through all the Heralds' books in and without the 
German empire, and through all manner of Sub- 
scribers'-lists, Militia-rolls, and other Name-cata- 
logues,' but had nowhere been able to find ' the 
name Teufelsdrockh, except as appended to his own 
person.' We can readily believe this, and we doubt 
very much whether any Christian parent would think 
of condemning a son to carry through life the burden 
of so unpleasant a title. That of Counsellor Heu- 
schrecke — 'Grasshopper' — though not offensive, 
looks much more like a piece of fancy work than a 
'fair business transaction.' The same may be said of 



314 APPENDIX. 

Blumine — 'Flower-Goddess 1 — the heroine of the 
fable ; and so of the rest. 

"In short, our private opinion is, as we have re- 
marked, that the whole story of a correspondence 
with Germany, a university of Nobody-knows-where, 
a Professor of Things in General, a Counsellor Grass- 
hopper, a Flower-Goddess Blumine, and so forth, has 
about as much foundation in truth as the late enter- 
taining account of Sir John Herschers discoveries in 
the moon. Fictions of this kind are, however, not 
uncommon, and ought not, perhaps, to be con- 
demned with too much severity ; but we are not sure 
that we can exercise the same indulgence in regard 
to the attempt, which seems to be made to mislead 
the public as to the substance of the work before us, 
and its pretended German original. Both purport, 
as we have seen, to be upon the subject of Clothes, 
or dress. Clothes, their Origin and Influence, is the 
title of the supposed German treatise of Professor 
Teufelsdrockh, and the rather odd name of Sartor 
Resartus — the Tailor Patched — which the present 
Editor has affixed to his pretended commentary, 
seems to look the same way. But though there is a 
good deal of remark throughout the work in a half- 
serious, half-comic style upon dress, it seems to be in 
reality a treatise upon the great science of Things in 
General, which Teufelsdrockh is supposed to have 
professed at the university of Nobody-knows-where. 
Now, without intending to adopt a too rigid standard 
of morals, we own that we doubt a little the propriety of 
offering to the public a treatise on Things in General, 
under the name and in the form of an Essay on Dress. 



APPENDIX. 315 

For ourselves, advanced as we unfortunately are in 
the journey of life, far beyond the period when dress 
is practically a matter of interest, we have no hesita- 
tion in saying, that the real subject of the work is to 
us more attractive than the ostensible one. But this 
is probably not the case with the mass of readers. 
To the younger portion of the community, which 
constitutes everywhere the very great majority, the 
subject of dress is one of intense and paramount 
importance. An author who treats it, appeals, like 
the poet, to the young men and maidens — virginibus 
puerisqne — and calls upon them, by all the motives 
which habitually operate most strongly upon their 
feelings, to buy his book. When, after opening 
their purses for this purpose, they have carried home 
the work in triumph, expecting to find in it some 
particular instruction in regard to the tying of their 
neckcloths, or the cut of their corsets, and meet with 
nothing better than a dissertation on Things in 
General, they will — to use the mildest term — not be 
in very good humor. If the last improvements in 
legislation, which we have made in this country, 
should have found their way to England, the author, 
we think, would stand some chance of being Lynched. 
Whether his object in this piece of supercherie be 
merely pecuniary profit, or whether he takes a malici- 
ous pleasure in quizzing the Dandies, we shall not 
undertake to say. In the latter part of the work, he 
devotes a separate chapter to this class of persons, 
from the tenor of which we should be disposed to 
conclude, that he would consider any mode of divest- 
ing them of their property very much in the nature 
of a spoiling of the Egyptians. 



316 APPENDIX. 

" The only thing about the work, tending to prove 
that it is what it purports to be, a commentary on a 
real German treatise, is the style, which is a sort of 
Babylonish dialect, not destitute, it is true, of rich- 
ness, vigor, and at times a sort of singular felicity 
of expression, but very strongly tinged throughout 
with the peculiar idiom of the German language. 
This quality in the style, however, may be a mere 
result of a great familiarity with German litera- 
ture ; and we cannot, therefore, look upon it as in 
itself decisive, still less as outweighing so much 
evidence of an opposite character. 1 ' — North-Ameri- 
can Review, No. 89, October 1835. 

IV. New-England Editors. 

"The Editors have been induced, by the express 
desire of many persons, to collect the following 
sheets out of the ephemeral pamphlets 1 in which 
they first appeared, under the conviction that they 
contain in themselves the assurance of a longer 
date. 

"The Editors have no expectation that this little 
Work will have a sudden and general popularity. 
They will not undertake, as there is no need, to justify 
the gay costume in which the Author delights to 
dress his thoughts, or the German idioms with which 
he has sportively sprinkled his pages. It is his 
humor to advance the gravest speculations upon the 
gravest topics in a quaint and burlesque style. If 
his masquerade offend any of his audience, to that 
degree that they will not hear what he has to say, it 

1 Fraser's (London) Magazine, 1833-4. 



APPENDIX. 317 

may chance to draw others to listen to his wisdom ; 
and what work of imagination can hope to please all? 
But we will venture to remark that the distaste ex- 
: cited by these peculiarities in some readers is greatest 
at first, and is soon forgotten ; and that the foreign 
dress and aspect of the Work are quite superficial, 
and cover a genuine Saxon heart. We believe, no 
book has been published for many years, written in a 
more sincere style of idiomatic English, or which 
discovers an equal mastery over all the riches of the 
language. The Author makes ample amends for the 
occasional eccentricity of his genius, not only by 
frequent bursts of pure splendor, but by the wit and 
sense which never fail him. 

" But what will chiefly commend the Book to the 
discerning reader is the manifest design of the work, 
which is, a Criticism upon the Spirit of the Age — 
we had almost said, of the hour — in which we live ; 
exhibiting in the most just and novel light the present 
aspects of Religion, Politics, Literature, Arts, and 
Social Life. Under all his gayety the Writer has an 
earnest meaning, and discovers an insight into the 
manifold wants and tendencies of human nature, 
which is very rare among our popular authors. The 
philanthropy and the purity of moral sentiment, 
which inspire the work, will find their way to the 
heart of every lover of virtue." — Preface to Sartor 
Resartus : Boston, 1835, 1837. 

Sunt, Fuerunt vel Fuere. 

London, -yothjune, 1838. 



SUMMARY. 



BOOK I. 



Chap. I. Preliminary . 

No Philosophy of Clothes yet, notwithstanding all 
our Science. Strangely forgotten that Man is by 
nature a naked animal. The English mind ail-too 
practically absorbed for any such inquiry. Not so, 
deep-thinking Germany. Advantage of Speculation 
having free course. Editor receives from Professor 
Teufelsdrockh his new Work on Clothes, (p. 5.) 

Chap. II. Editorial Difficulties. 

How to make known Teufelsdrockh and his Book 
to English readers; especially such a book ? Editor 
receives from the Hofrath Heuschrecke a letter prom- 
ising Biographic Documents. Negotiations with 
Oliver Yorke. Sartor Resartus conceived. Editor's 
assurances and advice to his British reader, (p. 11.) 

Chap. III. Reminiscences. 

Teufelsdrockh at Weissnichtwo. Professor of 
Things in General at the University there : Outward 
aspect and character ; memorable coffee-house utter- 
ances ; domicile and watch-tower : Sights thence of 
City-Life by day and by night ; with reflections 
thereon. Old 'Liza and her ways. Character of 
Hofrath Heuschrecke, and his relation to Teufels- 
drockh. (p. 16.) 

319 



320 SUMMARY. 

Chap. IV. Characteristics. 

Teufelsdrockh and his Work on Clothes : Strange 
freedom of speech ; transcendentalism ; force of 
insight and expression ; multifarious learning : Style 
poetic, uncouth : Comprehensiveness of his humor 
and moral feeling. How the Editor once saw him 
laugh. Different kinds of Laughter and their sig- 
nificance, (p. 31.) 

Chap. V. The World in Clothes. 

Futile cause-and-effect Philosophies. Teufels- 
drockh's Orbis Vestitus. Clothes first invented for 
the sake of Ornament. Picture of our progenitor, 
the Aboriginal Savage. Wonders of growth and 
progress in mankind's history. Man defined as a 
Tool-using Animal, (p. 38.) 

Chap. VI. Aprons. 

Divers Aprons in the world with divers uses. The 
Military and Police Establishment Society's working 
Apron. The Episcopal Apron with its corner tucked 
in. The Laystall. Journalists now our only Kings 
and Clergy, (p. 46.) 

Chap. VII. Miscellaneous-Historical. 

How Men and Fashions come and go. German 
Costume in the fifteenth century. By what strange 
chances do we live in History! The costume of 
Bolivar's Cavalry, (p. 49.) 

Chap. VIII. The World out of Clothes. 

Teufelsdrockh's Theorem, " Society founded upon 
Cloth ; " his Method, Intuition quickened by Experi- 
ence. The mysterious question, Who am I ? Philo- 



SUMMARY. 321 

sophic systems all at fault : A deeper meditation has 
always taught, here and there an individual, that all 
visible things are appearances only ; but also emblems 
and revelations of God. Teufelsdrockh first comes 
upon the question of Clothes : Baseness to which 
Clothing may bring us. (p. 54.) 



Chap. IX. Adamitism. 

The universal utility of Clothes, and their higher 
mystic virtue, illustrated. Conception of Mankind 
stripped naked ; and immediate consequent dissolu- 
tion of civilized Society, (p. 61.) 



Chap. X. Pure Reason. 

A Naked World possible, nay actually exists, under 
the clothed one. Man, in the eye of Pure Reason, 
a visible God's Presence. The beginning of all 
wisdom, to look fixedly on Clothes till they become 
transparent. Wonder, the basis of Worship : Per- 
ennial in man. Modern Sciolists who cannot wonder : 
Teufelsdrockh's contempt for, and advice to them, 
(p. 67.) 

Chap. XI. Prospective. 

Nature not an Aggregate, but a Whole. All 
visible things are emblems, Clothes ; and exist for a 
time only. The grand scope of the Philosophy of 
Clothes. Biographic Documents arrive. Letter from 
Heuschrecke on the importance of Biography. Het- 
erogeneous character of the documents : Editor sorely 
perplexed ; but desperately grapples with his work- 
(P- 740 



322 SUMMARY. 

BOOK II. 

Chap. I. Genesis. 

Old Andreas Futteral and Gretchen his wife ; their 
quiet home. Advent of a mysterious stranger, who 
deposits with them a young infant, the future Herr 
Diogenes Teufelsdrockh. After-yearnings of the 
youth for his unknown Father. Sovereign power of 
Names and Naming. Diogenes a flourishing Infant. 

(P- 85-) 

Chap. II. Idyllic. 

Happy Childhood ! Entepfuhl : Sights, hearings 
and experiences of the boy Teufelsdrockh ; their 
manifold teaching. Education ; what it can do, what 
cannot. Obedience our universal duty and destiny. 
Gneschen sees the good Gretchen pray. (p. 94.) 

Chap. III. Pedagogy. 

Teufelsdrockh's School. His Education. How 
the ever-flowing Kuhbach speaks of Time and Eter- 
nity. The Hinterschlag Gymnasium : rude Boys ; 
and pedant Professors. The need of true Teachers, 
and their due recognition. Father Andreas dies; 
and Teufelsdrockh learns the secret of his birth : 
His reflections thereon. The Nameless University. 
Statistics of Imposture much wanted. Bitter fruits 
of Rationalism : Teufelsdrockh's religious difficulties. 
The young Englishman Herr Towgood. Modern 
Friendship, (p. 105.) 

Chap. IV. Getting under Way. 

The grand thaumaturgic Art of Thought. Diffi- 
culty in fitting Capability to Opportunity, or of getting 
under way. The advantage of Hunger and Bread- 



SUMMARY. 323 

Studies. Teufelsdrockh has to enact the stern 
monodrama of No object and no rest. Sufferings as 
Auscultator. Given up as a man of genius. Zahdarm 
House. Intolerable presumption of young men. 
Irony and its consequences. Teufelsdrockh's Epi- 
taph on Count Zahdarm, (p. 125.) 

Chap. V. Romance. 

Teufelsdrockh gives up his Profession. The 
heavenly mystery of Love. Teufelsdrockh^ feeling 
of worship towards women. First and only love. 
Blumine. Happy hearts and free tongues. The 
infinite nature of Fantasy. Love's joyful progress ; 
sudden dissolution; and final catastrophe, (p. 140.) 

Chap. VI. Sorrows of Teufelsdrockh. 

Teufelsdrockh's demeanor thereupon. Turns pil- 
grim. A last wistful look on native Entepfuhl : Sun- 
set amongst primitive Mountains. Basilisk-glance 
of the Barouche-and-four. Thoughts on View-hunt- 
ing. Wanderings and Sorrowings, (p. 155.) 



Chap. VII. The Everlasting No. 

Loss of Hope, and of Belief. Profit-and-Loss 
Philosophy. Teufelsdrockh in his darkness and 
despair still clings to Truth and follows Duty. Inex- 
pressible pains and fears of Unbelief. Fever-crisis : 
Protest against the Everlasting No : Baphometic Fire- 
baptism, (p. 167.) 

Chap. VIII. Centre of Indifference. 

Teufelsdrockh turns now outwardly to the Not-me ; 
and finds wholesomer food. Ancient Cities : Mys- 
tery of their origin and growth : Invisible inheritances 



324 SUMMARY. 

and possessions. Power and virtue of a true Book. 
Wagram Battlefield : War. Great Scenes beheld by 
the Pilgrim : Great Events, and Great Men. Napo- 
leon, a divine missionary, pereaching La carrier e 
ouverte aux talens. Teufelsdrockh at the North 
Cape : Modern means of self-defence. Gunpowder 
and duelling. The Pilgrim, despising his miseries,, 
reaches the Centre of Indifference, (p. 177.) 

Chap. IX. The Everlasting Yea. 

Temptations in the Wilderness : Victory over the 
Tempter. Annihilation of self. Belief in God, and 
love to man. The Origin of Evil, a problem ever 
requiring to be solved anew : Teufelsdrockh's solu- 
tion. Love of Happiness a vain whim : A Higher in 
man than Love of Happiness. The Everlasting Yea. 
Worship of Sorrow. Voltaire: his task now finished. 
Conviction worthless, impossible, without Conduct. 
The true Ideal, the Actual: Up and work! (p. 191.) 

Chap. X. Pause. 

Conversion ; a spiritual attainment peculiar to the 
modern Era. Teufelsdrockh accepts Authorship as 
his divine calling. The scope of the command Thou 
shall not steal. — Editor begins to suspect the 
authenticity of the Biographical documents ; and 
abandons them for the great Clothes volume. Re- 
sult of the preceding ten Chapters : Insight into the 
character of Teufelsdrockh : His fundamental beliefs, 
and how he was forced to seek and find them, 
(p. 205.) 



SUMMARY. 325 



BOOK III. 

Chap. I. Incident in Modern History. 

Story of George Fox the Quaker ; and his peren- 
nial suit of Leather. A man God-possessed, witness- 
ing for spiritual freedom and manhood, (p. 215.) 

Chap. II. Church-Clothes. 

Church-Clothes defined ; the Forms under which 
the Religious Principle is temporarily embodied. 
Outward Religion originates by Society : Society be- 
comes possible by Religion. The condition of 
Church-Clothes in our time. (p. 221.) 

Chap. III. Sy?nbols. 

The benignant efficacies of Silence and Secrecy. 
Symbols ; revelations of the Infinite in the Finite : 
Man everywhere encompassed by them ; lives and 
works by them. Theory of Motive-millwrights, a 
false account of human nature. Symbols of an ex- 
trinsic value ; as Banners, Standards : Of intrinsic 
value; as Works of Art, Lives and Death of 
Heroic men. Religious Symbols : Christianity. 
Symbols hallowed by Time ; but finally defaced and 
desecrated. Many superannuated Symbols in our 
time, needing removal, (p. 225.) 

Chap. IV. Helotage. 

Heuschrecke's Malthusian Tract, and Teufels- 
drbckh's marginal notes thereon. The true work- 
man, for daily bread, or spiritual bread, to be hon- 
ored ; and no other. The real privation of the Poor 
not poverty or toil, but ignorance. Over-population : 
With a world like ours and wide as ours, can there 
be too many men? Emigration, (p. 234.) 



326 SUMMARY. 

Chap. V. The Phoenix. 

Teufelsdrockh considers Society as dead ; its soul 
(Religion) gone, its body (existing Institutions) 
going. Utilitarianism, needing little farther preach- 
ing, is now in full activity of destruction. — Teufels- 
drockh would yield to the Inevitable, accounting that 
the best : Assurance of a fairer Living Society, 
arising, Phoenix-like, out of the ruins of the old dead 
one. Before that Phoenix death-birth is accom- 
plished, long time, struggle, and suffering must 
intervene, (p. 239.) 



Chap. VI. Old Clothes. 

Courtes)' due from all men to all men : The Body 
of Man a Revelation in the flesh, Teufelsdrockh's 
respect for Old Clothes, as the " Ghosts of Life." 
Walk in Monmouth Street, and meditations there. 
(P- 247,) 

Chap. VII. Organic Filaments. 

Destruction and Creation ever proceed together; 
and organic filaments of the Future are even now 
spinning. Wonderful connection of each man with 
all men ; and of each generation with all generations, 
before and after : Mankind is One. Sequence and 
progress of all human work, whether of Creation or 
destruction, from age to age. — Titles, hitherto 
derived from Fighting, must give way to others. 
Kings will remain and their title. Political Free- 
dom, not to be attained by any mechanical contriv- 
ance. Hero-worship, perennial amongst men ; the 
cornerstone of polities in the Future. Organic fila- 
ments of the New Religion : Newspapers and Liter- 
ature. Let the faithful soul take courage ! (p. 252.) 



SUMMARY. 327 

Chap. VIII. Natural Super naturalism. 

Deep significance of Miracles. Littleness of 
human Science : Divine incomprehensibility of 
Nature. Custom blinds us to the miraculousness 
of daily-recurring miracles ; so do Names. Space 
and Time, appearances only; forms of human 
Thought : A glimpse of Immortality. How Space 
hides from us the wondrousness of our commonest 
powers ; and Time, the divinely miraculous course 
of human history, (p. 263.) 

Chap. IX. Circtunspective. 

Recapitulation. Editor congratulates the few 
British readers who have accompanied Teufels- 
drockh through all his speculations. The true use 
of the Sartor Resartus, to exhibit the Wonder of 
daily life and common things ; and to show that all 
Forms are but Clothes, and temporary. Practical 
inferences enough will follow, (p. 276.) 

Chap. X. The Dandiacal Body. 

The Dandy defined. The Dandiacal Sect a new 
modification of the primeval superstition Self-wor- 
ship : How to be distinguished. Their Sacred Books 
(Fashionable Novels) unreadable. Dandyism's Arti- 
cles of Faith. — Brotherhood of Poor-Slaves ; vowed 
to perpetual Poverty ; worshippers of Earth ; distin- 
guished by peculiar costume and diet. Picture of a 
Poor-Slave Household ; and of a Dandiacal. Teufels- 
drockh fears these two Sects may spread, till they 
part all England between them, and then frightfully 
collide, (p. 281.) 

Chap. XI. Tailors. 

Injustice done to Tailors, actual and metaphorical. 
Their rights and great services will one day be duly 
recognized, (p. 297.) 



328 SUMMARY. 

Chap. XII. Farewell. 

Teufelsdrockh's strange manner of speech, but 
resolute, truthful character: His purpose seemingly 
to proselytize, to unite the wakeful earnest in these 
dark times. Letter from Hofrath Heuschrecke an- 
nouncing that Teufelsdrockh has disappeared from 
Weissnichtwo. Editor guesses he will appear again. 
Friendly Farewell, (p. 301.) 



INDEX. 



Action, the true end of Man, 

165, 169, 204. 
Actual, the, the true Ideal, 204, 

205. 
Adamilism, 61. 
./Esthetic Tea, 132. 
Afflictions, merciful, 200. 
Ambition, 109. 
Apprenticeships, 12S. 
Aprons, use and significance of, 

46. 
Art, all true Works of, symbolic, 

Attorney Logic, 73; of printing, 
43- 

Baphometic Fire-baptism, 177. 

Battle-held, a, 1S1. 

Battle, Life-, our, 91 ; with Folly 
and Sin, 131, 134. 

Being, the Boundless Phantas- 
magoria of, 57. 

Belief and Opinion, 202, 203. 

Bible of Universal History, 185, 
202. 

Biography, meaning and uses 
of, 79; significance of bio- 
graphic facts, 210. 

Blumine, 145; her environment, 
146; character and relation to 
Teufelsdrockh, 147; blissful 
bonds rent asunder, 155; on 
her way to England, 161. 

Bolivar's Cavalry uniform, 54. 

Books, influence of, 1S0, 207. 

Childhood, happy season of, 94; 

early influences and sports, 97. 
Christian Faith, a good Mother's 

simple version of the, 104; 

Temple of the, now in ruins, 

201 ; Passive-half of, 203. 



Christian Love, 197, 201. 
Church-Clothes, 221 ; living and 
dead Churches, 223; the mod- 
ern Church and its News- 
paper-Pulpits, 261. 

Circumstances, influence of, 99. 

Clergy, the, with their surplices 
and cassock-aprons girt-on, 
47, 218. 

Clothes, not a spontaneous 
growth of the human animal, 
but an artificial device, 6; an- 
alogy between the Costumes of 
the bod}' and the Customs of 
the spirit, 38; Decoration the 
first purpose of Clothes, 42; 
what Clothes have done for us, 
and what they threaten to do, 
44, 60; fantastic garbs of the 
Middle Ages, 50 ; a simple cos- 
tume, 53; tangible and mystic 
influences of Clothes, 55, 63; 
animal and human Clothing 
contrasted, 59; a Court-Cere- 
monial minus Clothes, 65; ne- 
cessity for Clothes, 68; trans- 
parent Clothes, 71 ; all Em- 
blematic things are Clothes, 
76, 279; Genesis of the mod- 
ern Clothes-Philosopher, S5; 
Character and conditions 
needed, 213. 215 ; George Fox's 
suit of Leather, 217; Church- 
Clothes, 221; Old -Clothes, 
247 ; practical inferences, 279. 

Codification, 72. 

Combination, value of, 140, 304. 

Commons, British House of, 46. 

Concealment, 226. See Secrecy. 

Constitution, our invaluable 
British, 25S. 

Conversion, 206. 



329 



33° 



INDEX. 



Conviction, 203. 
Courtesy, due to all men, 247. 
Courtier, a luckless, 52. 
Custom the greatest of Weavers, 
267. 

Dandy, mystic significance of 
the, 2S1 ; dandy worship, 2S5 ; 
sacred books, 2S6; articles of 
faith, 2SS ; a dandy household, 
293; tragically undermined by 
growing Drudgery, 295. 

Death, nourishment even in, 
112, 176. 

Devil, internecine war with the, 
16, 126, 177, 192; cannot now 
so much as believe in him, 174. 

Dilettantes and Pedants, 74; pa- 
trons of Literature, 133. 

Diogenes, 220. 

Doubt can only be removed by 
Action, 121 ; Fever paroxysms, 
204; See Unbelief. 

Drudgery contrasted with Dan- 
dyism, 2SS; "Communion of 
Drudges," and what may 
come of it, 295. 

Duelling, a picture of, 1S9. 

Duty, no longer a divine Mes- 
senger and Guide, but a false 
earthly Fantasm, 170, 172; in- 
finite nature of, 204. 

Editor's first acquaintance with 
Teufelsdrockh and his Philos- 
ophy of Clothes, 10; efforts 
to make known his discovery 
to British readers, 12; ad- 
mitted into the Teufelsdrockh 
watch-tower, iS, 23, 304; first 
feels the pressure of his task, 
54; his bulky Weissnichtwo 
Packet, 78; strenuous efforts 
to evolve some historic order 
out of such interminable docu- 
mentary confusion, 84; partial 
success, 94, to6, 163; mysteri- 
ous hints, 210, 243; astonish- 
ment and hesitation, 257; con- 
gratulations, 27S; farewell, 301. 

Education, influence of early, 99; 
insignificant portion depend- 
ing on Schools, 107; educa- 
tional Architects, in; the in- 
spired Thinker, 236. 

Emblems, all visible things, 76. 



Emigration, 239. 

Epictetus, 165. 

Eternity, looking through Time, 

24, 7S, 231 ; Serpent of, 211. 
Evil, Origin of, 197. 
Existence, Pageant of, 251. 
Eyes and Spectacles, 73. 

Facts, engraved Hierograms, 
for which the fewest have the 
key, 211. 

Faith, the one thing needful, 169. 

Fantasy, the true Heaven-gate 
or Hell-gate of man, 151, 228. 

Fashionable Novels, 2S7. 

Fatherhood, 90. 

Feebleness, the true misery, 172, 

Fichte, 203. 

Fire, and vital fire, 75, 179 

Force, universal presence of, 75. 

Fortunatus' Wishing-hat, 269, 
272. 

Fox's, George, heavenward as- 
pirations and earthly inde. 
pendence, 217. 

Frazer's Magazine, 12, 310. 

Frederick the Great, symbolic 
glimpse of, S6. 

Freedom, 258; Gospel of, 191. 

Friendship, now obsolete, 124; 
an incredible tradition, 173, 
240; how it were possible, 
222, 304. 

Futteral and his Wife, 87, 88, 
113. 

Future, organic filaments of the, 
253- 

Genius, the world's treatment of, 

German speculative Thought, 8, 
17, 30, 34, 59; historical re- 
searches, 41, 79. 

Gerund-grinding, m. 

Ghost, an authentic, 273, 

God, the unslumbering, omni- 
present, eternal, 5S; God's 
presence manifested to our 
eyes and hearts, 69; an ab- 
sentee God, 169. 

Goethe's inspired melody, 262. 

Good, growth and propagation 
of, 105. 

Great Men, 1S5. See Man. 

Gullibility, blessings of, 117. 

Gunpowder, use of, 43, 188. 



INDEX. 



33* 



Habit, how, makes dullards of 
us all, 60. 

Half-men, 192. 

Happiness, the whim of, 199. 

Hegel, 17. 

Hero-worship, the corner-stone 
of all Society, 260. 

Heuschrecke and his biographic 
documents, 13; his loose, zig- 
zag, thin-visaged character, 
28; unaccustomed eloquence, 
and interminable documentary 
superfluities, 79; bewildered 
darkness, 305. 

History, all-inweaving tissue of, 
24; by what strange chances 
do we live in, 53; a perpetual 
Revelation, 185, 202, 262. 

Homer's Iliad, 233. 

Hope, this world emphatically 
the place of, 168; false shad- 
ows of, 194. 

Horse, his own tailor, 59. 

Hunger, 127. 

Ideal, the, exists only in the 
Actual, 204, 206. 

Imagination. See Fantasy. 

Immortality, a glimpse of, 270. 

Imposture, statistics of, 117. 

Independence, foolish parade of, 
241 , 259. 

Indifference, centre of, 191, 194. 

Infant intuitions and acquire- 
ments, 93; genius and dull- 
ness, 99. 

Inspiration, perennial, 217, 262; 
Plenary, 202. 

Invention, 43, 167. 

Invisible, the, Nature the visible 
Garment of, 59, 75; invisible 
bonds, binding all Men to- 
gether, 64; the Visible and 
Invisible, 70, 225. 

Irish, the, Poor-Slave, 289. 

Isolation, 113. 

Jesus of Nazareth, our divinest 

Symbol, 233, 237. 
Joseph, Kaiser, 230. 

King, our true, chosen for us in 

Heaven, 257. 
Kingdom, a man's, 127. 
Know thyself, and what thou 

canst work at, 172. 



Labor, sacredness of, 235. 

Land-owning, trade of, 134. 

Language, the Garment of 
Thought, 77; dead vocables, 
in. 

Laughter, significance of ; 37, 45. 

Lieschen, 27. 

Life, Human, first problem of, 
138; pictureof, 23, 158, 179, 195 ; 
life-purpose, 140; speculative 
mystery of, 173, 250, 273; the 
most important transaction in, 
177; nothingness of, 191, 192. 

Light the beginning of all Crea- 
tion, 205. 

Logic-mortar and vvordy Air- 
castles, 5S ; underground work- 
shop of Logic, 72. 

Louis XV., ungodly age of, 171. 

Love, what we emphatically 
name, 141 ; pyrotechnic phe- 
nomena of, 141 ; not altogether 
a delirium, 151 ; how possible, 
in its highest form, 198, 222, 

3°4- 
Ludicrous, feeling and instances 
of the, 52, 18S. 

Magna Charta, 279. 

Malthus's over-population panic, 

2 35- 

Man, by nature naked, 7, 61, 69; 
essentially a tool-using ani- 
mal, 44; the true Shekinah, 
70; a divine Emblem, 75, 225, 
228, 24S, 275; two men alone 
honorable, 235. See Think- 
ing Man. 

Metaphors the stuff of Lan- 
guage, 77. 

Metaphysics inexpressibly un- 
productive, 57, 63. 

Milton, 172. 

Miracles, significance of, 263, 
271. 

Monmouth-Street, and its "Ou' 
clo' " Angels of Doom, 250. 

Montesquieu, 38. 

Mother's, a, religious influence, 
104. 

Motive-Millwrights, 228. 

Mountain scenery, 159. 

Music of Wisdom, 272. 

Mvstery, all-pervading domain 
of, 73- 



33 2 



INDEX. 



Nakedness and hypocritical 
Clothing', 60, 67; a naked 
Court-Ceremonial, 65; a naked 
Duke addressing- a naked 
House of Lords, 66. 

Names, significance and influ- 
ence of, 92, 26S. 

Napoleon, 167; his Political 
Evangel, 186. 

Nature, the God-written Apo- 
calypse of, 57, 69; not an 
Aggregate but a Whole, 74, 
161, 254, 265; Nature alone 
antique, 108; sympathy with, 
15S, 1S7; the " laving Garment 
of God," 196; Laws of Nature, 
264 

Necessity, brightened into Duty, 
103. 

Nero, 170. 

Newspaper Editors, 48; our 
Mendicant Friars, 261. 

No, the Everlasting, 176. 

Nothingness of life, 190. 

Obedience, the lesson of, 104, 

257- 
Orpheus, 272. 
Over-population, 234. 
Own, conservation of a man's, 

208. 



Paradise and Fig-leaves, 40; 

prospective Paradises, 141, 152. 
Passivity and Activity, 103, 106, 

16S. 
Past, the, inextricably linked 

with the Present, 178; forever 

extant, 269. 
Paupers, what to do with, 239. 
Peace-Era, the much-predicted, 

1S4. 
Peasant Saint, the, 237. 
Pelkam, and the Whole Duty of 

Dandies, 2S7. 
Perfectibility, 216. 
Perseverance, law of, 245. 
Person, mystery of a, 69, 137, 

141, 248. 
Philosophies, Cause-and-Effect, 

39- 
Phoenix Death-birth, 246, 252, 

277. 
Printing, 43. 
Property, 20S. 



Proselytising. 12, 304. 
Radicalism, Speculative, 17, 32, 

"7» 259. 
Raleigh's, Sir Walter, fine 

mantle, 52. 
Religion, dead letter and living 

spirit of, 121; weaving new 

vestures, 223, 285. 
Renunciation, 199. 
Reverence, early growth of, 104; 

indispensability of, 259. 
Richter, 37. 
Rousseau, 161. 

Saints, living Communion of, 
255, 262. 

Sarcasm, the panoply of, 137. 

Sartor Re sartus, genesis of, 11; 
its purpose, 276. 

Saturn or Chronos, 135. 

Savage, the aboriginal, 42. 

Scarecrow, significance of the, 
66. 

Sceptical goose-cackle, 72. 

School education, insignificance 
of, 107, no; tin-kettle terrors 
and incitements, 109; need of 
Soul- Architects, in. 

Science, the Torch of, 5; the 
Scientific Head, 72. 

Secrecy, benignant efficacies of, 
226. 

Self-activity, 31. 

Self-annihilation, 194. 

Shame, divine, mysterious 
growth of, 44; the soil of all 
Virtue, 227. 

Silence, 1S7; the element in 
which all great things fashion 
themselves, 226. 

Simon's, Saint, aphorism of the 
golden age, 245; a false appli- 
cation, 306. 

Smoke, advantage of consuming 
one's, 157. 

Society founded upon Cloth, 55, 
64, 67; how Society becomes 
possible, 222, 223; social Death 
and New-Birth, 224, 244, 253, 
277 ; as good as extinct, 240. 

Solitude. See Silence. 

Sorrow-pangs of Self-deliver- 
ance, 157, 167, 16S; divine 
depths of Sorrow, 197; Wor- 
ship of Sorrow, 201, 202. 
I Soul, a stomach, 124, 169, 197. 



INDEX. 



333 



Space and Time, the Dream - 
Canvas upon which Life is 
imaged, 5S, 69, 263, 269. 

Spartan wisdom, 23S. 

Speculative intuition, 56. See 
German. 

Speech, great, but not greatest, 
226. 

Sphinx-riddle, the Universe a, 

134; 

Stealing, 208, 237. 

Stupidity, blessings of, 170. 

Style, varieties of, 77. 

Suicide, 175. 

Summary, 310. 

Sunset, 97, 160. 

Swallows, migrations and co- 
operative instincts of, 101. 

Swineherd, the, 98. 

Symbols, 225; wondrous agency 
of, 227, extrinsic and intrinsic, 
230; superannuated, 234, 246. 

Tailors, symbolic significance 

of, 298. 
Temptations in the wilderness, 

Testimonies of Authors, 310. 

Teufelsdrbckh's Philosophy of 
Clothes, 9; he proposes a 
toast, 17; his personal aspect, 
and silent deepseated Sans- 
culottism, iS; thawed into 
speech, 22; memorable watch- 
tower utterances, 23 ; alone 
with the Stars, 26; extremely 
miscellaneous environment, 
26; plainness of speech, 32; 
universal learning, and multi- 
plex literary style, 34; ambigu- 
ous-looking morality, 35; one 
instance of laughter, 36; 
almost total want of arrange- 
ment, 37; feeling of the ludi- 
crous, 52; speculative Radical- 
ism, 67; a singular Character, 
80; Genesis properly an Exo- 
dus, S5 ; unprecedented Name, 
90; infantine experience, 92; 
Pedagogv, 106; an almost 
Hindoo Passivity, 106; school- 
boy jostling, 109; heterogene- 
ous University-Life, 1 16; fever 
paroxysms of Doubt, 121 ; first 
practical knowledge of the 
English, 123; getting under 



way, 127; ill success, 131; 
glimpse of high-life, 132; 
casts himself on the Uni- 
verse, 140; reverent feeling 
towards Women, 142; fran- 
tically in love, 143; first inter- 
view with Blumine, 147; in- 
spired moments, 149; short of 
practical kitchen-stuff, 154; 
ideal bliss, and actual catastro- 
phe, 155; sorrows and peripa- 
tetic stoicism, 156, a parting 
glimpse of his Beloved on her 
way to England, 161 ; how he 
overran the whole earth, 163; 
Doubt darkened into Unbelief, 
169; love of Truth, 171; a 
feeble unit, amidst a threaten- 
ing Infinitude, 173; Bapho- 
metic Fire-baptism, 177; placid 
indifference, 177; a Hyperbo- 
rean intruder, iSS; Nothing- 
ness of life, 190; Temptations 
in the wilderness, 191; dawn- 
ing of a better day, 195; the 
Ideal in the Actual, 2C4; finds 
his true Calling, 107; his Biog- 
raphy a symbolic Adumbra- 
tion, significant to those who 
can decipher it, 210; a wonder- 
lover, seeker and worker, 216; 
in Monmouth-Street among 
the Hebrews, 250; concluding 
hints, 302; his public History 
not yet done, perhaps the bet- 
ter part only beginning, 307. 

Thinking Man, a, the worst 
enemy of the Prince of Dark- 
ness, 126, 206; true Thought 
can never die, 255. 

Time-Spirit, life-battle with the, 
91, 136; Time, the universal 
wonder-hider, 272. 

Titles of Honor, 156. 

Tools, influence of, 44; the Pen, 
most miraculous of tools, 207. 

Towgood, Herr, 123. 

Truth, 171. 

Unbelief, era of, 119, 171 ; Doubt 
darkening into, 169; escape 
from, 192. 

Unhappiness, 198. 

Universities, 116. 

Universe, void of life, 174. 

Utilitarianism, 16S, 242. 



334 



INDEX. 



View-hunting and diseased Self- 
consciousness, 162. 

Voltaire, 101 ; the Parisian Di- 
vinity, 160. 

War, 17S. 
Wisdom, 71, 272. 
Woman's influence, 141. 
Wonder the basis of Worship, 
71 ; region of, 279. 



Words, slavery to, 5S; Word- 
mongering and Motive-grind- 
ing, 170. 

Workshop of Life, 206. See 
Labor. 

Young Men and Maidens, 134, 
141. 

Zahdarm House, 133. 









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